NEWSLINKS US EDITION SOUTH ASIA COLUMNISTS DIARY SPECIALS INTERVIEWS CAPITAL BUZZ REDIFF POLL DEAR REDIFF THE STATES ELECTIONS ARCHIVES US ARCHIVES SEARCH REDIFF
Shahid K Abbas in New Delhi
The external affairs ministry is in a bind on the issue of seeking the extradition of Sheikh Omar, a leader of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed and prime suspect in the abduction of American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Though Union Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah told a television channel on Tuesday that "we would like him to be handed over in good faith", his ministry's spokesperson Nirupama Rao said a day later, "We are studying reports on Sheikh Omar. We are yet to decide."
The government's dilemma is because of a legal hurdle of its own creation. When releasing Omar to the hijackers of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 on December 31, 1999, India had dropped all charges against him. It was for this reason that New Delhi had excluded his name from the list of 20 terrorists whose return it has been demanding from Pakistan.
The name of JeM founder Masood Azhar, who was also released with Omar, figures prominently in that list because of his alleged involvement in the October 1 terrorist attack on the Jammu & Kashmir assembly and the December 13 attack on Parliament.
Asserting that Omar's arrest was "confirmation of Pakistan providing safe havens to such criminals", Rao said, "The fact that he has been apprehended and put in police custody only serves to vindicate what we have been saying all along about him carrying on terrorist activities. He is a known terrorist and when he was in India he had committed innumerable crimes on Indian soil and we had known for some time that he has been in safe havens of Pakistan."
Responding to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's charge that India had conducted a secret nuclear test, the spokesperson said this was nothing but "diversionary propaganda" to shift the world's attention from Pakistan's role in providing safe havens to terrorists. "This is obviously the season for kite-flying in Pakistan," she quipped.
Back to top
Tell us what you think of this report
