Pathankot assault: No reason to distrust Pakistan, says Indian home minister

Rajnath Singh says 'there is no reason to disbelieve" Pakistan since it has assured action against culprits

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday there is no reason India should distrust Pakistan’s assurance on taking stringent actions against the perpetrators of the Pathankot Air Base attack.

“The Pakistan government has said it will take effective action. I think we should wait,” he said, according to The Hindu.

The minister said "there is no reason to distrust them [Pakistan] so early" as the Pakistan government has given its word and assured India that it would take effective actions against the culprits.

After the January 2 Pathankot air base  attack, New Delhi said it had provided Islamabad with intelligence information to take action against the perpetrators who allegedly belonged to Pakistan.

The civil and military leadership of Pakistan have already pledged their commitment to cooperate with India on the attack, and mulled over strategy and mechanism of cooperation with the neighbouring country.

Condemning the incident, Pakistan had reiterated its commitment to cooperate with India to eradicate the menace of terrorism afflicting the region.

On January 9, during a telephonic conversation with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told him that Pakistani law enforcement agencies have detained some suspects from Sialkot and Bahawalpur based on the two phone numbers India had provided as ‘leads’, sources said.

The detained suspects are Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) office-bearers from Sialkot and relatives of the one of the attackers from Bahawalpur, they added.

India has also said the impending talks between the countries in mid-January will take place only if Pakistan takes appropriate actions against the culprits.

This article originally appeared on The Hindu.