India cautious over fate of foreign secretary talks due to lack of evidence on Masood Azhar's detention

NEW DELHI: New Delhi remained cautious over the fate of the proposed foreign secretary-level talks on Friday in absence of objective evidence from Pakistan on the detention of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, the mastermind behind Pathankot terror strikes.

The PM met foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and foreign secretary S Jaishankar after media reports emerged from Pakistan that Azhar has been detained. This was after an hour-long meeting between Swaraj and Jaishankar on the fate of the dialogue in the aftermath of reports of detention of high-profile terror operative.

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“The government of India does not have any objective evidence of detention of Azhar in Pakistan. The Pakistani media reports on this development are not credible. The high-level meeting is still continuing between the PM, foreign minister and senior officials,” an authoritative source said.

A GEO TV report had stated that Azhar has been detained, creating hopes of high-profile meeting later this week. But Mohammad Zubair, a minister in the Nawaz Sharif government, told an Indian TV channel that he cannot confirm the detention of Azhar by Pak authorities. MEA spokesperson said that a decision on whether to go ahead with the FS-level talks with Pakistan on Friday will be taken after Wednesday night meeting between Modi and Swaraj.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan, eyeing to salvage engagement with India, detained “several individuals” belonging to JeM and sealed its offices and announced that it was considering sending a probe team to the scene of the strike in Pathankot to gather more inputs on the incident. Meanwhile, Sharif has set up another high-level investigation team to probe the Pathankot attack. Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies have arrested 12 suspects of banned JeM from different cities of southern Punjab, according to the online newspaper, Daily Pakistan.