'India's position on Dawood vindicated our stand, he is not in Pak'

Pakistan has questioned the veracity of India's dossiers on underworld don Dawood Ibrahim calling them ‘self-serving’ and said government's comments in Parliament on his whereabouts vindicated its sustained stand that the fugitive was not in its territory.

Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit said the comments by Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary in Parliament on Tuesday justified his country's worries on the issue and asserted that India has not placed any request with Islamabad in writing for Dawood's extradition.

"Honestly speaking, that was quite disquieting and disconcerting from our perspective and frankly that calls for some introspection. If you prepare dossiers on the basis of self-serving information, than we have every reason to be worried. Our worries are justified," he told Karan Thapar on Headlines Today.

Contradicting government's earlier stand on Dawood's whereabouts, Chaudhary had said in Parliament that the government was not aware of the location of the fugitive whose deportation from Pakistan it has been demanding.

Asked whether the minister's position vindicated Pakistan's stand, he said "It does. He is not in Pakistan."

On whether India either in the recent past or earlier had formally in writing requested extradition of the don, he said, "Not to my knowledge".

When pressed further, he said, "Not to my knowledge because from our perspective as we have been saying our position is that he is not in Pakistan. So the question of extradition does not arise in the first instance."

India had handed over to Pakistan several dossiers on Dawood, India's most wanted fugitive, giving details about his locations in Pakistan.

The envoy also called Jammu and Kashmir as ‘mother of all issues’ bilaterally and said both the countries should work with sincerity to resolve it.

"First of all, it is important whether it is United Nations resolutions or Shimla agreement or 1999 Lahore Declaration, you need to understand from our perspective, and I think India also recognises that, Jammu and Kashmir is mother of all our issues bilaterally," he said.

The high commissioner said other issues such as Siachen, Sir Creek or water issues, terrorism, have their ‘roots in the Jammu and Kashmir dispute’ while asserting that Islamabad wanted to normalise ties with India.

Basit emphasised that ‘all our issues have their origin or genesis in the Jammu and Kashmir issue’.

On India raising the issue of granting of bail to Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi with the UN Sanctions Committee, the hHigh commissioner said it was the country's prerogative to do that.

The high commissioner refuted apprehension that the Pakistani government was not serious about prosecuting Lakhvi. He said India must respect both the Pakistani legal system as well as the legal outcome. Basit also termed as ‘speculative’ reports that Lakhvi had a TV, mobile phones, internet and dozens of visitors while in jail.

The envoy also rejected the charge that Pakistan's legal and political establishments had not done anything to remove technical bottlenecks such as court's refusal to take as evidence recordings provided by United Kingdom and the United States of Lakhvi's instructions on phone to the 26/11 killers as he refused to give a voice sample to match them.

Basit said India should wait for the end of the trial without commenting on the process or speculating about the outcome. Basit said there has been no substantial improvement in the prospects for political dialogue between India and Pakistan since August when the Foreign Secretary level talks were called off by India.

He said hopes that Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar's South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation yatra visit to Islamabad might rekindle the stalled dialogue process have turned out to be still-born.

Pakistan was, he said, disappointed but not frustrated. The high commissioner said even nine months after the talks were called off after his meeting with Hurriyat leaders, Pakistan continues to view the excuse as ‘frivolous’.

"There is disappointment. There is no doubt about that because we do want our relations with India to normalise. We do want our relationship to move from conflict management to conflict resolution and we do want to engage with India in a sustained meaningful dialogue process," Basit said.

He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had invested a lot of effort and taken a big step by coming to Narendra Modi's swearing-in in May and felt let down by the way the relationship turned thereafter.

The high commissioner appeared to hint that a report in a Pakistani newspaper that India and Pakistan had worked out a solution to permit Islamabad to talk to Hurriyat in such a way as not to offend India could be correct.

The paper had said the high commissioner can meet Hurriyat any time but not before official level talks. "It is for India to articulate their position," he said.

On Hafiz Saeed, the envoy said he was wrong to claim in April that the Pakistan army was carrying out ‘jihad’ against India on the Kashmir issue. However, when asked why Pakistan had not acted against Saeed, he said it was not necessary to act against statement of a private person.