Pakistan and India on May 30 exchanged a list of wanted criminals but did not hold any discussion on the matter during the two-day talks between the Pakistan’s interior secretary and India’s home secretary, reports Daily Times.



The exchange of lists was not part of the agenda of the talks, which focussed on exchange of civilian prisoners and fighting drugs and terrorism. The list given to the Indian home secretary by Pakistan included 58 wanted criminals believed to be hiding in India. Sources said one of the prominent names was Javed Langra. The Indian list contained 38 wanted criminals including Hafiz Saeed, Azhar Masood and Dawood Ibrahim. The Indian home secretary also sought extradition of five hijackers of an Indian flight which was hijacked from Nepal and taken to Kandahar in December 1999.India claims that Pakistani nationals Mohammad Ibrahim Athar Alvi, Zahoor Ibrahim Mistri, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Shakir Mohammad and Azhar Yusuf were involved in the hijacking.



There was a little likelihood that the two countries would sign an extradition treaty for the exchange of criminals. The criminals wanted by Pakistan were ‘heroes’ in India and vice-versa. Pakistan denied India’s claim that Dawood Ibrahim - India’s most wanted man - was living in Karachi. Pakistani authorities made it clear that they had no information on Dawood’s whereabouts.



Pakistan rejected Indian allegations that it is involved in cross-border terrorism and observed that Pakistan was itself a victim of terrorism because it was a frontline state in the war against terror. The Pakistani side also raised the issue of Indian consulates in Afghanistan, which Islamabad believes are abetting terrorists in Balochistan.