New Delhi: Even as Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Shatif's special envoy for improving relations with India Shahryar Khan did a U-turn on his remarks on Dawood Ibrahim, India said the 1993 Bombay bomb blast dossier has "never" been closed and it will not rest till those responsible for the heinous attacks were brought to justice.
A day after acknowledging the presence of one of the India's most-wanted terrorists in Pakistan and saying that Dawood had been "chased out" of Pakistan and he may be in the UAE, Khan on Saturday said his statements were taken out of context by the media.
"I think that comment was grossly twisted. We were at a launch of my book on cricket in Pakistan and questions were asked and one question was related to spot fixing and match fixing etc. in which the sub context is very much involved and various accusations. So, at that point somebody asked me what about Dawood Ibrahim and I said to the person and everyone openly that according to press reports I don't think Mr Ibrahim is in Pakistan," Khan said in an interview to IBN18 Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai.
"I do not know where he is or when he came or when he left for Pakistan. I was only repeating press reports which I had seen. I had no knowledge. This is something that you cannot put on my plate because I have no idea, I have left the foreign office 20 years ago," Khan added.
Pakistan High Commissioner Salman Bashir also backed his colleague saying that Khan's comments on Dawood have been largely misunderstood by the Indian media. Speaking to CNN-IBN's Karan Thapar, Bashir said: "I think the way Shahryar Khan 's remarks have been quoted in Indian media since morning, he is being misunderstood. What he meant was that Pakistan is determined to root out terrorism."
Khan's statement on Dawood drew strong reaction from India. "The 1993 Bombay blasts dossier has never been closed by us. Therefore, now that we have received more information about it, we will not rest till those responsible for the 1993 attacks against our citizens in Mumbai are brought to justice. Wherever they are, we will continue to pursue this quest," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party also criticised Pakistan saying that any statement from the neighbour cannot be trusted. "Any statement from the Pakistani authorities cannot be trusted. They hid al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in their country for ten years and the US had no clue about it. They are doing this again for Dawood. It's not surprising," BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy said.
Party President Rajnath Singh acknowledged that it's good that Pakistan has accepted that Dawood has been staying in its territory, but it is not enough. "They should do more to get justice for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. If they are not ready to accept our demands then we should scale down our diplomatic ties with Pakistan," he said.
Pakistan has till now has always denied Dawood's presence on its soil though Indian security agencies have repeatedly provided details of his whereabouts in dossiers handed over to Pakistani authorities. According to reports, Dawood was based in Karachi, where he had fled after the 1993 Bombay bombings. Besides the 1993 attacks, he is wanted in numerous terror and criminal cases in India. In 2003, the US government designated him as a "Foreign Terrorist".
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