Indus talks positive, but fresh tensions arise

Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 20

Even as Indian officials sat down with their Pakistani counterparts to hold a meeting of the Indus Water Commission in Lahore today, two other parallel movements threatened to raise tension again.

Sources in the government said as far as the Indus talks were concerned, Pakistan, in private, expressed happiness at the fact that the talks were finally happening. It is also being seen as a positive development in the India-Pak narrative that has seen only tension in the last one year.

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A 10-member delegation from India arrived in Lahore today to hold talks. The Indian delegation is led by India’s Indus Water Commissioner PK Saxena and comprises Ministry of External Affairs  officials and technical experts. The Pakistan delegation will be headed by Mirza Asif Saeed. However, two parallel movements threatened to raise tension again. One: The two Sufi clerics who went missing in Pakistan last week today accused a Pakistani daily for the drama as it ran the news that the two were working for the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

Syed Asif Nizami and Nazim Ali Nizami, the two clerics of the Nizamuddin Dargah, alleged they were detained by Pakistan’s law enforcement agency for questioning based on the untrue report run by a newspaper Ummat. 

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had to step in and take up the issue with Pakistan PM’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz.

Secondly: India’s Deputy High Commissioner in Pakistan JP Singh was today summoned in Islamabad over alleged “unprovoked” firing by Indian troops in the Kotli area along the LoC on March 17.