India rubbishes Pak's report on Lahore blasts

New Delhi, Dec 26: Now a new drama unfolds. After Pakistan claimed on Thursday, Dec 25 regarding the arrest of an Indian spy, Satish Shukla of Kolkata, the country is now alleging that four Indians were involved in the Lahore blasts (on Wednesday, Dec 23).

The stunt clearly shows Pakistan's inaction towards Lashkar and jihadis in Pakistan. This outraged the Indian officials.

The Indian officials rubbished the report of Indian's involvement and said that this had not been conveyed to any Indian agency by Islamabad. The Indian High Commission in Islamabad too denied having received any information from the Pakistanis.

"Nothing has been conveyed officially and we suspect this is yet another ploy to divert attention from the real issue, which is to bring the guilty in Mumbai attacks to justice. We don't believe these reports are true and if they are, we would like Pakistan to inform us officially,'' said a highly placed source, adding that it was mischievous on the part of Pakistan authorities not to have confirmed or denied it.

Moreover, at the crude ploy, officials also said that India would not have chosen this moment to trigger off a blast in Pakistan, knowing that the bellicose neighbour would leap upon even a small excuse to justify its refusal to cooperate with the Mumbai probe.

The Lahore drama stripped the statement of Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani disclaiming hostile intent of any significance. "I assure you that we want excellent relations with India. We want to maintain good relations with India,'' said Gilani, adding that in his assessment there won't be any war".

Even after advocating for peace with India, Gilani said that his government would not act till India provided evidence about the involvement of Pakistanis in the attacks.

With no Pakistani official willing to confirm or deny, the media there had a field day pointing fingers at India for fomenting trouble in their country in the light of the 'arrest of the Indian terrorist'. One report where a senior Pakistani police official expressed complete ignorance about the arrest of an Indian was withdrawn later.

Reports claiming that Shukla had been arrested not by the cops, but by intelligence agencies deepened the suspicions about the veracity of the 'Indian hand' theory, as it is the local police who can arrest anyone.

Shukla was claimed to have been arrested barely hours after the blast. Three others were arrested later. A couple of pistols, cameras and maps were seized from Shukla and others. All 4 were described as Indian spies who wanted to carry out more attacks on Thursday at the behest of an Indian intelligence agency.

OneIndia News (With inputs from Agencies)