India hanged Kasab fast to make us look a villain, says ex-Pak interior minister after Sharif remark

All hell has broken loose in Pakistan after its ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif accused his own country to allowing terrorists to cross border and kill over 160 people in Mumbai in November 2008. Sharif's admission during an interview to a leading Pakistani daily on Friday, May 11, has opened a Pandora's Box and criticism has started flying in at him thick and fast within Pakistan for making such a remark.

Pakistan's former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Khan on Sunday, May 13, negated Sharif's remark that Pakistan failed to finish the trial of the 26/11 attacks, saying it was instead the "uncooperative and stubbornness of the Indian government" which put up the "biggest obstacle" on the way of the trial to reach a conclusion.

Khan, who served as Pakistan's interior minister in the Sharif government between 2013-17 said in statement on the former PM's remarks and the Indian media's reaction to it that New Delhi was to be blamed for the delay in the Mumbai attacks.

"I say with full responsibility that the delay and slow pace of the Mumbai attacks-related case in Pakistan was not Pakistan's doing but was a result of non-cooperation and stubbornness by India," PML-N leader was quoted as saying by the Dawn.

Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency probed the Mumbai attacks under Khan's watch and he said since the attacks took place in India's financial capital, the Indian government had in its possession "90 per cent of the evidence and facts" of the attack, the Dawn reported.

Khan said India did not share the facts and evidence with Pakistan despite repeated efforts. He also alleged that the Indian government made its lack of interest in taking the case forward evident by not letting the Pakistani investigators meet the only living member of the terror squad that carried out the mayhem in Mumbai for more than two days - Ajmal Kasab, the Dawn report added.

"In a country where cases concerning capital punishment face years of delays, the only proof in a very important case was sent to the gallows in extreme haste to take him away from the public eye and close the door before facts became public," Dawn quoted Khan as saying while taking a dig at India.

Khan also claimed that Kasab was rushed to the gallows so that the Mumbai attacks could be used as a weapon to bash Pakistan across the world.