Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde confirmed the HT story that Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed was in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir a few days before the killing of two Indian soldiers. Shinde told a press conference on Thursday that intelligence agencies had received information “that in PoK, Hafiz Saeed had entered and talked to some people”.

Asked if this implied extremists were involved in carrying out the raid on Indian soldiers, Shinde said, “I do not have that information. But we are very keen on getting such information.”

Government officials said the multi-agency centre — tasked with sharing intelligence inputs to all central security agencies — had put out this bit of information, but insisted that it was too early to jump to any conclusion.