NEW DELHI, Aug 28: India will pitch for an extradition treaty with Pakistan on Monday when their home secretaries start a two-day discussion here on terrorism and drug trafficking mandated by the confidence building measures, Indian Home Secretary V. K. Duggal said on Sunday.

Several news channels carried reports also of the demand Mr Duggal would make in talks with his Pakistani counterpart Syed Kamal Shah for the extradition of Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Mr Duggal merely said issues pertaining to fugitives would be raised with Pakistan but he mentioned no names.

As former IG of Police of Sindh Mr Shah is expected to focus on drug pedalling across the sprawling land border and its uses to fund terrorism “in all its manifestations”, sources close to him told Dawn. Pakistani diplomats said that although drug trafficking abroad from Afghanistan through their territory had come down drastically in the last four years, smugglers were using other routes, including Iran and Central Asia. “India too is a transit route for international trafficking,” one diplomat said.

In January last year, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat was quoted as saying to the Pakistani media that his country was prepared to discuss extradition with India.