Not sure if Capt Kalia was killed by Pak bullet: Malik

, Dec 15: Pakistan Interior Minister

sparked off a controversy on Friday when he said that he was unsure whether

martyr Captain Saurabh Kalia was killed by the

troopers or the adverse weather.

Malik, who is currently on a three-day visit to India, made the controversial statement minutes after landing in New Delhi. Captain Kalia, who was captured during the Kargil War in 1999, was brutally tortured in captivity and killed. The mutilated bodies of Kalia and some of his colleagues were later handed over to the Indian army.

Captain Kalia's family has been fighting to get justice for him and the Supreme Court recently issued a notice to the centre on the appeal of Dr NK Kalia, father of the slain army man, to know whether it would raise the matter in the International Court of Justice. Dr Kalia and some of his sympathisers also moved the United Nations earlier this month on the matter.

Malik said nobody knows whether Captain Kalia was killed by a Pakistani bullet or weather. Islamabad has consistently denied the torture and blamed adverse weather for Kalia's death in May, 1999. It said Kalia had fallen inside a crevice and died.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said India had taken up the issue with Pakistan when it had got an opportunity. "Their response has been conveyed to the nation. We will raise the issues again if need be and if the opportunity arises," he said.

Dr Kalia rejected Malik's invitation to meet him and shake his hand. The father in distress, who has been running from pillar to post to get justice for his son, said if Malik indeed wanted to shake his hands with him, he should shake the Pakistani army and find out the killer of his son. The Kalia family has also slammed the Indian government for allegedly doing nothing in the past 13 years to investigate war crimes and seriously take up the case with the international bodies.

OneIndia News