Terror meet: Delhi for Sept date with Pak

With India and Pakistan hit by terror strikes in the past two weeks, New Delhi has proposed two sets of dates in September to hold a meeting of the Indo-Pak joint anti-terror mechanism here.

With India and Pakistan hit by terror strikes in the past two weeks, New Delhi has proposed two sets of dates in September to hold a meeting of the Indo-Pak joint anti-terror mechanism here.

While South Block maintains that the meeting has been on cards for over a month now and not prompted by the Hyderabad blasts, sources said, the relevance has increased after these blasts. In its last meeting, six months ago, India had handed over the name of HUJI’s Shahid Bilal as one of the terrorists believed to be in Pakistan.

With Bilal emerging as the mastermind of the recent blasts, India will be looking for a response on this request apart from other issue.

Pakistan, which is yet to respond to the fresh dates, has indicated that it is awaiting appointment of the key interlocutor on its side after Additional Secretary Tariq Osman Haider retired.

When asked, the MEA Spokesperson, confirming India’s move, said: “We have proposed two sets of dates, but we understand the Pakistan side is awaiting appointment of its point person.” It may be recalled that mechanism, which was agreed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf at Havana last year after Mumbai blasts threatened to adversely impact the peace process, has held one substantive meeting in March.

However, not much headway was possible after Pakistan made it clear at the outset that it did not consider violence in Jammu and Kashmir as terrorism. The mechanism, which was to meet again in three months time in June, has still not met. India had proposed dates in July-end and then in August but neither of them were found convenient by Pakistan.

With a large section of officials on both sides giving up on the mechanism as an idea that will not take off, India seems to trying to breathe some life back by suggesting another set of dates.