No bilateral meet between Rajnath Singh and Nisar Ali Khan, confirms Home Secretary

Ending speculations of a bilateral meeting between India-Pakistan on the sidelines of SAARC Interior Ministers' conference, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi on Thursday said there will be no bilateral talks between Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Pakistan Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan

"There will be no bilateral talks meet between Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Pak Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan," Mehrishi said.

"In the meetings held on August 3, talks between the ministers took place on the issue of terrorism, especially SAARC terrorist offences monitoring test and SAARC drug monitoring test. It was asked from all the member nations to establish these tests at the earliest. India placed three-four proposals and offered technical assistance to STOMD (SAARC Terror Offences Monitoring Desk and SDOMD (SAARC Drug Monitoring Desk)," he said.

The Union Home Secretary further said India offered to host SAARC anti-terror meeting on September 22-23 between anti-terror agencies of the SAARC member nations.

"India also offered to give trainings in drug control activities and urged the SAARC nations to send their officials," he said.

Rajnath Singh arrived here on Wednesday to attend the SAARC Interior Ministers' conference and was flown to a five star hotel in a helicopter amid security concerns arising out of protests led by Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) activists, a front organisation of terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

He met with Amir Ahmed, additional secretary in Pakistan's interior ministry. The three-tier meeting began at the joint secretary-level and then moves on to Secretary and Home Minister-level meetings.

Earlier, there was speculation of Singh having a bilateral meeting with his Pakistani counterpart in the wake of strain in Indo-Pak relations after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani in Jammu and Kashmir on July 8.