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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Indian demand on Omar rejected |
| 2002-02-20 |
| Pakistan on Tuesday rejected an Indian request to share information from a prime suspect arrested in connection with the kidnapping of US reporter Daniel Pearl. India's external affairs ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao told reporters earlier in the day that Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh, the suspect, had information on the hijacking of an Indian plane in 1999, as well as last year's bloody attacks on Kashmir legislature and parliament in Delhi. "Why should we share information with them?" a Pakistani government official told Reuters. "We have been asking (India) to share information on so many things which they never shared. Why should we share now?" British-born Omar spent five years in an Indian jail for his alleged role in the 1994 kidnapping of three Britons and an American who were lured from New Delhi. He was released, together with two other detainees, in December 1999 in exchange for 155 people held on an Indian airliner hijacked to Kandahar. The Pakistani official said India previously held Omar for five years and had plenty of opportunities to question him. "Omar was in Indian custody for so many years. Why did they not interrogate him then?" he said. The spokeswoman said India had information about Omar's involvement in various terrorist acts and added that Delhi hoped Islamabad would act on its demand. |
| Posted by:Fred |