Pak to respond to Indian dossier in a week

January 15, 2009 11:48 IST

Pakistan will formally respond within a week to India's dossier on the Mumbai attacks by describing the information provided in it as "scanty and insufficient" and by renewing its offer for a joint probe into the terrorist strike, a media report said today.

"The Pakistani response is almost prepared after prolonged consultations here among the Foreign Office, interior ministry and other security agencies and it is being given a finishing touch," a senior official who did not want to be named told the pro-establishment The Nation daily.

The response will be handed over to India in a week after it is approved by the President and Prime Minister, he said.

The dossier had been thoroughly examined and the Pakistani response could be summarised by saying that "the Indians would be told to extend concrete evidence to Islamabad and not information", the official said.

The response will also describe "the so-called Indian evidence as scanty and insufficient," the daily said.

Pakistan would repeat its offer for a joint probe into the Mumbai [Images] attacks with "a plea that it was the only workable solution" to the standoff between the two countries, he said.

The official declined to share details of the Pakistani response but said that it described the "Indian information (as) not something that could be produced as admissible before the court as a piece of evidence".

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in his address to parliament on Tuesday, had said material provided by India constituted information and not evidence.