New Delhi, Mar 18 (PTI) Congress today alleged lack of coordination in the government ahead of the visit of a joint investigation team from Pakistan to probe the terror attack in Pathankot airbase.
Senior party spokesman Anand Sharma told reporters that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have ensured coordination by convening a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security before External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit to Pokhara in Nepal for the SAARC Foreign Ministers Meeting.
The announcement about the Pakistani team’s visit had come after Swaraj’s meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz in Pokhara yesterday.
“There is no coordination in this Cabinet”, he said adding that the Defence Minister, the Home Minister and his Minister of State are speaking in “differnt” voices on the issue.
He was reacting to reports quoting the Home Minister that he had come to know through the media that the Pakistani joint investigation team is coming. “The Home Minister is not aware of JIT. The Defence Minister is saying a different thing”.
Seeking to know government’s roadmap on Pakistan, Sharma said that Congress was not opposed to engagement with Islamabad. He, however, said that Pakistan had not fulfilled its commitments in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.
He wondered what understanding had been reached during the meeting of NSAs of India and Pakistan in Bangkok that convinced the Prime Minister to go to Lahore.
Making a strong plea to take the opposition leadership into confidence, he said Congress was fully justified in asking the Prime Minister as to what assurances convinved him to go ahead with the prace process. He wondered whether the process is backed by the entire Pakistani establishement including the Army.
Six Pakistani terrorists, suspected to be belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammad, had attacked the airbase on January 2 in which seven security personnel were killed.
In the gun-battle, all the six terrorists were also killed.
PTI
