M A I N   N E W S

Extradite hijackers, India asks Pak

Agra, July 16
India has made a formal request to Pakistan to hand over the hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 and the kingpin of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts that killed more than 250 persons.

“We have requested Pakistan that they should be arrested and handed over to us. They have to be brought to justice,” Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said at the commencement of the official-level talks yesterday, according to the text of his statement released today.

The Indian Government said some terrorists and criminals guilty of acts like the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts and the December, 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 were living in Pakistan.

Also, the three militants released in lieu of the hostages were living in Pakistan. One of the hijackers was a brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, who now heads the jehadi group Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Dawood Ibrahim, who allegedly masterminded the Mumbai blasts is reportedly living in Karachi, but Pakistan strongly denied that it had sheltered him. “We never gave shelter to any person by the name of Dawood Ibrahim, whose extradition was sought,” the Pakistan Government said.

The Indian Government released three militants to seek the release of the hijacked aircraft and more than 150 persons held hostage. They included Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar alias Latram. Zargar is now living at Muzzfarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. UNI

Musharraf to look into PoWs issue

Agra, July 16
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf today said that he would personally look into the issue of Indian prisoners of war (POWs) in Pakistan ‘for the last time.’

Addressing a breakfast meeting of senior editors and journalists, General Musharraf said he had promised Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that he would inquire if there were any POWs in Pakistan and release them.

Being a soldier himself, he said, “We would be mad to retain a prisoner of war for 30 years.”

He said he had been told that there were Indians who had been languished in Pakistan jails since the India-Pakistan conflict of 1971. UNI

Sushma clarifies

Mobbed by the media over the controversy about her statement on the Indo-Pak summit talks at Agra on Monday, information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj explains her stand. — PTI photo

Agra, July 16
The Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Ms Sushma Swaraj, today said she had been totally misunderstood in regard to her observation on the summit talks, both one-to-one and delegation levels, now going on here.

The Pakistani side yesterday had expressed reservations that she had failed to mention Kashmir in her assessment of the meetings. But Ms Swaraj clarified that this was not by design and that she had only emphasised the positive course the dialogue was taking.

The minister stated that when she spoke about the talks going on in the right direction, the emphasis was that both sides were prepared to touch on all outstanding issues, including Kashmir. The reference was to the overall constructive nature of the talks and Kashmir was not deliberately omitted, Ms Swaraj added. ANI