Samjhauta casts shadow over Indo-Pak terror meet

In what could be the sign of an uncomfortable first meeting of the India-Pakistan joint mechanism on terror, Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz today asked India to share information on the investigation of the Samjhauta Express blasts, in which 30 of the 68 killed were Pakistanis.

The meeting between Indian and Pakistani officials will be held on March 7-9 in Islamabad and will be the first after the mechanism was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Aziz made the statement at a ceremony at the Governor's House in Karachi on Sunday to hand over compensation cheques to the relatives of those killed in the incident.

Aziz asked the Indian government to take immediate action against the elements behind the act. "They were all innocent and peace-loving Pakistanis and had not harmed anyone," he said.

All this will hardly be music to the ears of the Indian delegation, led by Additional Secretary KC Singh. Sources in the external affairs ministry said they would provide Islamabad "enough details" pin-pointing the hand of alleged Pakistan-backed terrorist outfits in the Mumbai as well as Samjhauta blasts. Soures added that handing over of "hard evidence" was not likely.

There are fears that that there could be "tampering" with technical evidence if it provided proof of Pakistan-based terror groups' involvement. Fears related specifically to phone numbers and web server data, which can easily be tampered with.

On the blasts in Mumbai last year, ministry sources said since the chargesheet in the case had been filed, India was in a position to share concrete information.