Bemused Aiyar asks whether PM Modi has a Pakistan-centric policy

A bemused Congress Party on Friday asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his NDA Government has a Pakistan-centric policy at all, given the time being taken to fix a convenient date for foreign secretary-level talks.

"I fail to understand, if at all, whether the Modi Government has a policy on Pakistan. The present government has no policy or ambition to deal with Pakistan, and that is why they keep overturning their decisions," Congress leader and former diplomat Mani Shankar Aiyar told ANI.

Aiyar also questioned the need for Modi to take a sudden detour to Lahore to greet Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on his birthday on December 25.

"On December 25, 2015, it was uncertain where the prosecution of 26/11 would head and suddenly the Prime Minister goes to Raiwind and greets happy birthday to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and tries to create an atmosphere aimed that there would be something great happening soon, but just after a month, things fall back to the point where they were," he added.

He said Prime Minister Modi always makes tall promises only to leave everyone disappointed later.

Aiyar's broadside against the NDA regime came a day after the External Affairs Ministry had said that both nations are yet to agree on a mutually convenient date for foreign secretary-level talks.

"We see Mumbai terror attack trial in Islamabad as a test of Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism directed against India," MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup had said on Thursday.

"The planning, training and financing of the Mumbai attack was done in Pakistan where 99% of the evidence is. It is Pakistan's responsibility to unearth and present the requisite evidences so that the perpetrators are brought to justice," he added.

The MEA was responding to a Pakistan court dismissing a government petition that sought voice samples of 26/11 mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six other suspects in the case.

In 2011 and 2015, the issue of obtaining voice samples of Lakhvi had been dismissed by the trial court on the grounds that "no such law exists that allows obtaining of voice sample of an accused".

The prosecution's petition said the Indian intelligence agencies had intercepted communication between the suspects and the terrorists in connection with the Mumbai attack in 2008.