Home Minister Rajnath Singh along with his SAARC counterparts will meet Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif today in Islamabad. Singh is in the country to attend SAARC interior ministers’ conference. Earlier, Indian Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said there will be no bilateral meet between Singh and Pakistani interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. A number of issues concerning South Asia including terrorism came up for talks during the meeting of home ministers.

Mehrishi said that India has placed 3-4 proposals including a proposal to set up a SAARC terror desk. “India has offered technical assistance to SAARC terror offences monitoring desk (STOMD),” Mehrishi told reporters. The desk was set up in 1995 in Colombo to collate, analyse and share information related to terrorism in the SAARC region. However, there has been some technical issues that have not let the STOMD become functional. Mehrishi said that other issues that were brought up by India included the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which will help in extradition of terrorists, a proposal to control the trafficking of Narcotic drugs and sharing information on missing children. Mehrishi said all SAARC members were asked to approve these proposals.

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Besides, India will host a SAARC anti-terrorism meet on September 22-23 and all countries have agreed to it, he said,  adding “only through mutual cooperation, terrorism can be stopped in South Asia.” Mehrishi further said that all countries have also agreed to cooperate for making a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) operational.
A number of Pakistan-based organisations, including some terror-outfits, are protesting Singh’s visit to the country.