PAF plane leaves with injured, takeoff delayed
New Delhi: A Pakistan Air Force (PAF)
aircraft had to wait for about
five hours on Thursday at the Delhi international airport before taking off with seven injured Pakistani nationals because of differences between India and Pakistan over questioning the injured who were prime witnesses to the Samjhauta link train blasts.
India has sought access to the injured saying that if required they need to come back and give their testimony to the blast, reliable
sources said late Thursday.
Pakistan initially rejected the suggestion saying that since India had rejected a joint probe into the blast it needs to go through proper channels for this, the sources said.
The two sides spent hours trying to sort out the issue. Finally, Pakistan agreed to cooperate with India in investigating the blast, the sources said.
The PAF C-130 transport
aircraft landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at 4 p.m.. and was parked in the military area of the airport. It had a medical team on board to ferry the injured back home. The injured were taken aboard the aircraft, after which it developed a technical snag, delaying its takeoff. The snag was rectified and the aircraft finally took off after 9 p.m., an official said.
All is well that ends well, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said Thursday evening when asked why the Pakistan Air Force aircraft took so long before flying off to Islamabad to ferry some of the injured victims. He was speaking at a South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) dinner here before winding up his three-day visit to India.
Earlier, external affairs ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna told reporters:
We hope the authorities in Pakistan will extend all cooperation in identifying and punishing the guilty.
This is probably the second time Pakistan has sent a military aircraft to India on a civilian mission and, that too, with a pilot armed with a valid visa.
Of the 68 dead, 33 bodies have been identified -- 27 of these are Pakistanis. Twenty-one bodies have been handed over to the relatives of those killed in Sunday night's twin blasts in the Delhi-Attari express carrying over 600 Lahore-bound passengers.
While India has ruled out a joint probe into the train blasts, as demanded by the Pakistani National Assembly, it agreed to share the leads in the ongoing investigation at the first meeting of the joint anti-terror mechanism in Islamabad March 6.