ISLAMABAD: Federal Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed has asserted that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held a secret meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kathmandu on the sidelines of 2014 SAARC summit.
“The meeting that you held with Narendra Modi in Kathmandu, did you share its details with the foreign office,” he said while addressing a press conference in Islamabad. “Did you inform any of Pakistan’s responsible institutions about it?” he added.
Sheikh Rasheed refused to disclose the source of his information. However, Indian journalist Barkha Dutt had written in her book ‘This Unquiet Land — Stories from India’s Fault Lines’ about a secret meeting between Sharif and Modi in Kathmandu.
According to the Indian journalist, the meeting was arranged by Indian steel magnate Sajjan Jindal. “Jindal was asked to discreetly reach out to his ‘friend’ across the border,” Dutt claimed, adding that the two leaders met quietly in Jindal’s hotel room.
Later, both Indian and Pakistani governments had denied reports of the meeting soon after they were aired on media.
The then Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government had described the reports as ‘baseless’. “The report is completely baseless. No such meeting took place,” the Indian External Affairs Ministry said.
In today’s press conference, Railways Minister also asked Nawaz Sharif to answer two questions if he has nothing to hide. “Firstly, why did Maryam Safdar, the political heir apparent of Nawaz Sharif, stay silent for 10 months?” he asked.
Secondly, he reminded Sharif how he himself was on the forefront against Asif Zardari, the then president, in a 2011 scandal that came to be known as ‘Memogate’ in the chequered political history of Pakistan.
Referring to the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), he said, “Prime Minister Imran Khan would rather dissolve the assemblies than give ‘NRO’ to any corrupt politician.”
