India to share Samjhauta info with Pak once probe completed

Home secretary Gopal K Pillai today said that India will share information with Pakistan on the investigation into the Samjhauta train blast once the probe is completed.

The Government on Sunday said it will share information with Pakistan on the investigation into the Samjhauta train blast once the probe is completed.

HT Image

Home secretary Gopal K Pillai said New Delhi understands the concerns of Islamabad as several Pakistani citizens were killed in the Samjhauta blast but investigation has not been completed yet.

"Now the investigation is on.... Investigation is not complete. As and when the investigation is completed and charge sheet is filed, we would definitely share the information with Pakistan," he said.

The blast in Samjhauta Express, which runs between India and Pakistan, took place on the intervening night of February 17 and 18, 2007 near Panipat in Haryana.

Right wing Hindu activist Swami Aseemananda, in his confessional statement given to the National Investigation Agency, "admitted" his and his colleagues' involvement in the blast that left 68 dead, mostly Pakistanis.

Pillai said government was committed to bring to justice anyone who commits terror irrespective of his religion or anything else as it considers such person as nothing but a "criminal".

"I think in one sense, it (the probe) shows that we are willing to be fair as far as possible.

"If somebody has done a crime, irrespective of who is he, what is his religion, we will go after him and make sure that he is punished," he said.

The home secretary said he hoped that the message goes to Pakistan, which is yet to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attack to justice, so that they also do it irrespective of who the person involved is.