Centre to discuss beheading of Sikhs during foreign secretary level talks: Antony

New Delhi, Feb 23 (ANI): Union Defence Minister A K Antony on Tuesday said the Centre has decided to take up the issue of the beheading of two Sikhs in Peshawar during the foreign secretary level talks in New Delhi on February 25.

Antony said, "Anyway we are talking to the foreign secretary on February 25, certainly we will take up the issue with foreign secretary also."

India's Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao is expected to meet her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir to try and end a diplomatic freeze between the two nations after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terror outfit was blamed for the attacks that claimed around 166 lives. India broke off the formal peace process, known as the composite dialogue, in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

The two countries however, held several high-level meetings on the sidelines of international conferences last year - the last was between the foreign ministers in September 2009.

The two men, identified as Jaspal Singh and Mahal Singh, were kidnapped along with two others by the Pakistani Taliban a month ago from Bara in the Khyber Agency. A ransom of 30 million rupees was demanded for their safe return.

There has been no reaction from Islamabad to the incident. New Delhi has reacted sharply over the horrific incident describing the incident as 'shocking'. (ANI)