India to ask Pakistan to hand over Hafiz Saeed

New Delhi, Dec 10 (IANS) India will demand handing over of Lashkar-e-Taiba founder and 26/11 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafeez Saeed during the visit of Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik this week, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said Monday.

He said he had raised the issue of Saeed moving freely in Pakistan with Malik, when they met in Maldives on the sidelines of a SAARC inter-ministerial conference in September, and that he should be handed over to India.

“I am quite sure that when he will come here, I will discuss with him this issue,” Shinde told reporters here Monday.

Malik is expected to come to India on a three-day visit from Friday. India and Pakistan are likely to operationalise the liberalised visa agreement during his visit.

Shinde said India will also seek voice samples of the handlers of the terrorists who carried out the Mumbai terror attack in 2008 that killed 166 people.

He also expressed optimism about a breakthrough on the National Counter Terrorism Centre, saying he has been talking to chief ministers on the issue.

The government had deferred the operationalisation of NCTC, a project initiated by Shinde’s predecessor P. Chidambaram, following protests from some chief ministers.

Asked about his reported remarks in Gujarat suggesting that Intelligence Bureau’s new chief Syed Asif Ibrahim was appointed to the post because he was from the minority community, Shinde said Ibrahim is an able person.

“I only said that he is from minority community. That’s all,” he sought to clarify.

IANS 2012-12-10 23:20:08