‘India doesn’t need lecture from Pakistan on tolerance’

Responding to Islamabad’s statement over the “disruption of events organised for prominent Pakistani personalities in India”, the Centre lashed out saying it does not need a “lecture” as the hostile neighbour is not an “embodiment of tolerance”.

Former Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mahmud Khursid Kasuri who is in India and has been visiting various places in Mumbai, met veteran actor Dilip Kumar.

He said Gandhi and Jinnah were great leaders who collectively worked to avoid “partition” and keep India united. Do not underestimate the common sense of the people of Pakistan and India.

Commenting on a question pertaining to the whereabouts of one of India’s most-wanted men, Dawood Ibrahim, Kasuri said, “I was the foreign minister of Pakistan and not the interior minister”.

However, the sources said India has made it clear that terrorism can not be an instrument of statecraft.

Following the Kargil war in 1999, then Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had apparently called up Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to express regret that while he (Vajpayee) had been received in the Lahore with such warmth, Pakistan had wasted no time in trying to occupy Kargil. “If they are in denial of that (that is an issue)”, said a senior official. “A lot of what has not gone as per Ufa is because of Pakistan’s domestic politics…”

“It was clearly stated in Ufa that a composite dialogue will be carried out but the environment should be good and that the first thing to discuss would be terrorism along with other issues”.

Kasuri was accompanied by Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former BJP member and columnist who invited Shiv Sena’s wrath for organising the Pakistani politician’s book release in Mumbai yesterday.

After a hectic day of back-toback engagements, Kasuri said India’s insistence that Pakistan is to be blamed for everything that is going wrong between the two countries is proving to be counter-productive and snuffing out any opportunity for a rapprochement.

He said The Quaid (Jinnah) too was only known as a negative character in India.