ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office denied on Thursday renewed Indian allegations that terror suspect Dawood Ibrahim was hiding in Pakistan.

“Our consistent position on Dawood Ibrahim has been that he is not in Pakistan,” FO spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said at a weekly media briefing.

Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, according to Indian media, was planning to raise the issue of Dawood Ibrahim’s presence in Pakistan at the now cancelled Pakistan-India NSAs meeting and had prepared a dossier containing ‘proofs’ in this regard, including a list of nine addresses used by him here.

Some of the addresses were checked by media and found to be incorrect. The Indian media had also in the run-up to the cancelled dialogue come up with its own proofs.

Mr Khalilullah reminded that the Indian minister of state for home affairs had a few months ago told parliament that whereabouts of Dawood Ibrahim were not known. “His statement vindicated our position,” the spokesman said.

Answering a question about the possibility of a meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the sidelines of UN General Assembly meeting in New York next month, he said no such proposal was under consideration.

He said the government had decided to keep the UN informed about the developments in ties with India. In this regard, Mr Khalilullah said, Pakistan’s permanent representative in New York Dr Maleeha Lodhi had briefed senior UN officials on the circumstances under which it was not possible to hold the NSAs meeting.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2015

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