NEW DELHI: India on Saturday said an embarrassing blunder in the country's “most wanted fugitives list” given to Pakistan was a “wake up” call to security agencies to become more professional.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram's statement came after India withdrew a list of “most-wanted” fugitives allegedly being sheltered in Pakistan after the government discovered that at least two were in India, one of them in prison.
Chidambaram also said the mistake does not damage government's credibility and it will “not change the dynamics” of the relationship between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, or the status of talks between them.
He rejected suggestions that the gaffe may incite Pakistan to dismiss India's repeated requests to hand over militant suspects New Delhi believes are in that country.
“I don't think it damages credibility. I think it is a wake up call for the agencies to become more professional,” he told Indian television network CNN-IBN.
However, Indian commentators have said the error undermined New Delhi's efforts to pressure Pakistan over its alleged harbouring of criminals and extremists who are suspected of plotting cross-border strikes.
The list was handed to Pakistan earlier this year but was only made public last week as India sought to increase pressure on Islamabad in the wake of the death of Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden.
India's top police agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, has now taken down the list from its website pending revision.
The Press Trust of India news agency quoted an unnamed home ministry official earlier in the week as saying India may send a corrected list to Pakistan.
The list had included the founder of the banned group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which India blames for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.
Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute of Conflict Management and a homeland security specialist, said mistakes were bound to be made as India does not have a centralised police database to share information between security agencies, leaving the process open to human error.
“There's an entire international case built up against Pakistan which is very well known. All this shows is India and the Indian authorities in a poor light that they can't get their act together,” he told AFP on Friday.
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.