Pak govt says its too early to comment on bin Laden failure

Pakistan government today said that it was too early to say whether someone would be punished for failing to detect Osama bin Laden's decade-long stay in the country, a day after a leaked report blamed authorities for negligence in tracing the slain al-Qaeda chief.

Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid said that government was not in a hurry to take action against those responsible for negligence in tracing bin Laden.

'It is too early to ask this question,' Rashid told reporters when asked about any punitive measures being contemplated by the authorities against those who failed to locate al-Qaeda chief's whereabouts in the country.

His comment came after a leaked government investigation into the killing of bin Laden blamed unnamed authorities for negligence and incompetence in failing to detect or capture him.

In the first official response after scathing report, the minister also said that government would take action against those making public the classified document.

'Only the government was authorised to declassify the document,' Rashid said, 'We will see who did it by violating the laws.'

The report has created a stir in the country by saying that officials were responsible for gross negligence and incompetence for failure to trace presence of bin Laden in the country or know about US attack which killed him in a secret raid on May 2, 2010.

Pakistan appointed a commission to investigate the circumstances leading to his death. The report was submitted to the government last year.

It was not officially released but leaked to Al-Jazeera yesterday.

Earlier, Foreign Ministry spokesperson refused to comment on the leak.

'I have not seen the report and I am not in position to comment on it,' Aizaz Chaudhry said.

The powerful military has also not issued any official response to the report which is highly critical of even security institutions including Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency.