Pakistan high commissioner Shahid Malik met Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao in South Block on Friday.
Sources said the meeting was at Malik’s request, and Rao gave details on Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed, who India wants to see behind bars.
Malik’s call-on was primarily to explore the possibility of a meeting between Rao and Pakistan foreign secretary Salman Bashir, ahead of the face-to-face between Indian external affairs minister SM Krishna and his counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi in New York, where both will attend the United Nations General Assembly.
The decision for a meeting of foreign secretaries, to be followed by ministers, was taken at Sharm El-Sheikh and announced in the joint statement. But with the furore that prime minister Manmohan Singh had to face at home after the joint statement, the peace process appears to be in a limbo.
Islamabad is keen to revive the peace talks and is trying to read the government’s mood. Pakistan hopes a meeting of foreign secretaries will pave the way for the Krishna-Qureshi meeting in New York. A peace move with India strengthens the hands of the civilian government of Pakistan and both president Asif Zardari and prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani want to take this forward.
They are eager to take steps to help the process of engagement. The case against Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, the main accused in the Mumbai terror attacks, and others are on in a Pakistan anti-terror court. Islamabad has given Interpol the names of 13 Pakistanis involved in helping the plotters.
Pakistan has been asking India for evidence against Saeed, and Rao handed over details to Malik. But the contents of the dossier are not known. Saeed’s detention at home under the maintenance of public order had been revoked by a Lahore court last month as the Punjab government could not give enough evidence to justify the JuD chief’s continued house arrest.
India, which had got the United Nations Security Council to proscribe him after the Mumbai attacks, was disappointed with Saeed’s release and the fact that when the case came up again in July it had to be deferred due to a technical snag.
Pakistan has made it clear that it is willing to proceed against Saeed as long as there is enough proof.
