ISLAMABAD: A top government minister was grilled on Thursday by a parliamentary panel for his 'controversial' statement that a "pro-India lobby" is present at the foreign affairs ministry. The meeting of standing committee on Kashmir Affairs & Gilgit Baltistan held here with Rana Shamim Ahmed Khan in chair, asked the minister for Kashmir Affairs Ali AMin Gandpur whether 'there is any truth in his statement about presence of an Indian lobby at the Foreign Office'.
In the same breath, Khan asked the minister to pin point the pro-Indian officers at the foreign affairs ministry' as it is too big a claim as it's linked with the man in-charge of Kashmir affairs - Ali Amin Gandapur.
This left the minister red-faced who then categorically rejected the reports, sating he 'never' made such an irresponsible statement. However, he said that during a meeting, some officers of the foreign affairs ministry had said that they were stopped from making statements in the past.
Gandapur took the plea that his statement which was taken out proportion as he had spoken in that context that 'in the past, the Foreign Office officials, did not speak on the core issue of Kashmir'.
Briefing the panel, the Foreign Office officials plainly said that present of pro-Indian officials at the foreign affairs ministry is simply 'out of question'. The under-fire senior officials of the Foreign Office, fully exercised their diplomatic skills in the stormy meeting, and managed to calm down the enraged MPs by saying "the Foreign Office is the frontline of the country's policy on Kashmir".
They reiterated that the "Foreign Office is bound to what's the policy of the state and the government".
In a bid to diplomatically divert the attention of the MPs from the heated debate on Gandapur's 'controversial' statement about Foreign Office officials, they said that "Indian violates the line of control on several occasions and hits the civilian population but they [Foreign Office] give statement quite carefully as there live a large number of Muslims across the border so we remain very careful in initiating [any fight] and always respond".
With this meeting the participants of the meeting dispersed and the flamboyant Gandapur had a sigh of relief - thanks to the Foreign Office officials for the in-depth briefing on the issue.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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