26/11 not planned in Pak soil: Pak envoy, Gilani ticks him off

London/Davos, Jan 30 (PTI) A senior Pakistani diplomat
Friday said the Mumbai terror attack was not planned in
Pakistan, a remark that drew the ire of Pakistan Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani who ticked off the envoy.

"In fact, he can't comment at the moment when the Prime
Minister can't comment. How can anybody comment? Because it is
only the job of the Interior Ministry," Gilani told private
television channel NDTV in Davos response to a query on
Pakistan's High Commissioner to the UK Wahid Shamshul Hasan's
remarks about the probe.

Gilani's comments were a throwback to the Mahmud Ali
Durrani saga when he was sacked as the National Security
Adviser for confirming the Pakistani identity of Ajmal Kasab,
the lone surviving gunman involved in the Mumbai carnage.

Commenting on the preliminary findings of Islamabad's
probe into the information dossier provided by India on the
Mumbai attacks, Hasan earlier told the channel from London
that his country's territory was not used for planning the
operation.

The Pakistani media has reported that the findings showed
that Pakistani soil was not used to plan the 26/11 attack.

"Pakistan's territory was not used so far as we know, so
far as the investigators have made a conclusion. It could have
been some other place but not the UK as well," Hasan said.

Hasan's comments were the first from a senior Pakistani
official since India handed over the dossier of evidence.

Gilani said Pakistan was still examining the dossier and
would come out with the findings "very soon."

Vowing that Pakistan's territory would not be used for
terrorism, Gilani said that anybody found guilty would be
punished according to the law.

"The world should be assured and India should be assured
that we all are against terrorism and we are the victims of
terrorism, both India and Pakistan. Therefore there should be
no doubts about it. Whatever the information, we are probing
into it," Gilani told the channel on the sidelines of the
World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.

To a question that people in India and some other parts
of the world will not believe the findings, Hasan had earlier
said, "why are they not going to believe it if we say so and
if we say that we will give the facts that it (Pakistani
territory) was not used, it could be some other place".

"We are not going to do any whitewashing business. We
believe in going after facts and will try to satisfy India
with whatever we find and our findings will be acceptable to
the world because we were not addressing only Indian
concerns," he said.

Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik yesterday
said that the preliminary report will be made public in "two
to three days".