Void

NEW DELHI: Armed with the voice samples of the 26/11 attack masterminds Hafiz Saeed and Zakirur Rehman Lakhvi in one hand, and an agreement to ink the liberalised visa regime in the other, an Indian delegation headed by Home Secretary R K Singh failed to convince their Pakistani counterparts, led by Interior Secretary Khwaja Siddique Akbar, to agree on anything which could have stamped the two-day long bilateral talks as a step forward in resolving matters between the two nations. While India seemed to be in a hurry to ink the revised visa regime, Pakistan’s unexpectedly tough stand on the matter triggered a chain-reaction effect on other issues as well. India’s Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said in Delhi on Friday that Pakistan said it would rather wait to conclude the agreement on a political level. The delegation was also carrying certificates from a neutral country’s lab to convince Pakistan about Saeed’s and Lakhvi’s hand in the Mumbai attack. But Malik’s casual response to the evidence produced by India will raise more questions. Pakistan also agreed in principle to receive an Indian judicial commission for probe into the attacks.