Defence experts put onus on Pak ISI over disappearance of Indian Sufi clerics

"The Airport is a high security area and a person cannot go missing in high security area. It is Pakistan Government which will have to answer not only to India but to the entire Muslim world," Brigadier (Retd.) Mahalingam told ANI.

Reacting to the reports that Pakistan intelligence agencies are behind the abduction of Muslim clerics, he further asserted that obviously it is someone who has access to the airport and it is none another than Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

"I suspect, therefore it is Pakistan's ISI which has carried this particular abduction and it is Pakistan Government which will have to answer," he added.

Echoing similar sentiments, Brigadier (Retd.) Amrit Kapoor said that the missing clerics are major personalities and that their disappearance could possibly be plotted by the Pakistan ISI.

"They have realised that these Imams and religious sufis heads can create propaganda, as Indian Government is a democratically elected government and believes in complete freedom of expression," he added.

Two Indian Sufi clerics, who were on a pilgrimage to Pakistan, have gone missing, prompting India to take up the matter with the Pakistani government.

Asif Nizami and Nazim Nizami, had gone to Karachi to meet their relatives after which they headed to Lahore to visit the shrines of Sufi saints.

Syed Asif Ali Nizami is the head priest of New Delhi's Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah.

Meanwhile, a Dargah Committee meeting is underway in Delhi's Nizamuddin regarding the disappearances.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that she has taken up the matter with Islamabad.

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria also acknowledged that an Indian request seeking assistance for the recovery of two clerics had been received.