In the first official word on the findings of Islamabad's probe into the information dossier provided by India on the Mumbai attacks, a senior Pakistani diplomat has said that his country's territory was not used for planning the operation.
"Pakistan's territory was not used so far as we know, so far as the investigators have made a conclusion. It could have been some other place but not the United Kingdom as well," Pakistan's envoy to Britain Wahid Shamshul Hasan said.
To a question that people in India and some other parts of the world will not believe the findings, he told a TV channel, "Why are they not going to believe it if we say so and if we say that we will give the facts that it (Pakistani territory) was not used, it could be some other place".
He said, "We are not going to do any whitewashing business. We believe in going after facts and will try to satisfy India with whatever we find and our findings will be acceptable to the world because we are not addressing only Indian concerns".
The comments came as media reports in Pakistan said that the outcome of Islamabad's probe into the Indian dossier was that Pakistani territory was not involved in planning the carnage in India's financial capital.
Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik on Thursday said that the preliminary report will be made public in 'two to three days'.
On the issue of the veracity of the Pakistani probe, Hasan said, "Well it (Indian dossier) could be fabricated, it could have been made out. You (India) took 45 days to come up with that sort of evidence although you started blaming Pakistan on the first day".
The diplomat said that the probe was in its final stages and the report was being compiled.
"You collect the material, then you sort it out, you re-do it and re-read it. That requires time, so I am sure once they complete it they will come out with concrete facts that will satisfy the world as to Pakistan's non-involvement in Mumbai attacks," he claimed.
He said there was no 'specific deadline' for making the report public and the investigators needed more time to complete their work. Malik had on January 17 given the investigation team ten days to submit its preliminary findings.
India has blamed Pakistan-based elements, including leaders of the banned Lashker-e-Tayiba terror group, for masterminding and coordinating the attacks on Mumbai that killed over 180 people in November last year.
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