Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday said it would
not comment on reports that Chilean police had arrested the
brother of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar who was accused of
coordinating the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane
till details of the detained individual had been ascertained.
Foreign Office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua
acknowledged during a weekly news briefing that a "few
Pakistanis" had been arrested in Chile due to "visa issues".
However, she said authorities would not comment on
reports that Azhar's brother Abdul Rauf was among them till
the identity of the detained individuals is verified.
"If there is an individual amongst them, of whatever
name, I don’t think we need to comment on it till we know the
details of the individual," Janjua said in response to a
question.
Besides, Pakistan "need not discuss these issues in
the public domain" because there was an ongoing mechanism
involving the Interior and Home Secretaries of the two
countries to take up issues related to counter-terrorism, she
said.
A Pakistani media report yesterday had said that
authorities had refuted the Chilean police's claim of having
arrested the brother of Azhar, accused of coordinating the
1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines airplane from the
Nepalese capital Kathmandu to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
The News daily quoted unnamed officials of Pakistani
security agencies as saying that the Chilean police had
arrested someone else because Mufti Abdul Rauf, the younger
brother of Azhar, is present in the garrison town of
Rawalpindi.
The officials further said that the name of the man
arrested in Chile is Mohammad Abdul Rauf and he was a
Pakistani charged with possessing a fake visa.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, April 14, 2011, 18:39