Samjhauta blast: Pak summons Indian diplomat

Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday summoned the Indian Chargé d'affaires here to the foreign ministry to convey its “severe disappointment” at the Indian government's failure to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Samjhauta Express train blast in 2007, the Foreign Office said in a statement issued here on the 15th anniversary of the incident.

On February 18, 2007, an explosion occurred on the Samjhauta train – which runs between Delhi and Lahore – at Panipat in Haryana, killing at least 68 people, including 43 Pakistan citizens, 10 Indian citizens and 15 unidentified people. Both India and Pakistan governments had condemned the attack, with officials on both sides speculating that the perpetrators had intended to disrupt the ongoing peace process, since the attack had come a day before the then Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri was to arrive in New Delhi.

On Friday, the Indian Chargé d'affaires was “conveyed Pakistan's severe disappointment at Indian government's callousness towards the plight of the families of the Pakistani nationals who await justice even after the passage of fifteen years,” according to the Foreign Office statement.