Pak Foreign Secretary in Delhi

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood is on a visit to India amid speculation about the possibility of a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart from the neighbouring country Imran Khan in the Kyrgyz Republic on June 13 and 14.

Mahmood's was a quiet visit till he was seen offering prayer at the Jama Masjid in Delhi on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr on Wednesday.

The Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India did not confirm if Mahmood was in New Delhi to informally meet his counterpart Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale or any other senior official and explore possibility of a meeting between Prime Ministers of the two nations on the sideline of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit at Bishkek – the capital of Kyrgyz Republic.

Mahmood was Islamabad's envoy to New Delhi till he was appointed as Foreign Secretary of Pakistan. He took the office of Foreign Secretary on April 17, succeeding Tehmina Janjua.

Sources said that Mahmood returned to New Delhi to take his family back to Islamabad. He also hosted a reception at High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi in the evening on Wednesday.

The tension between India and Pakistan escalated earlier this year after a suicide bomber of the terrorist organization, Jaish-e-Mohammed, which is based in the neighbouring country, killed over 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel at Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir on February 14. India retaliated with an air-strike on a JeM camp at Balakot inside Pakistan on February 26. The fighter aircraft of India and Pakistan had a dogfight on February 27.

Modi Government's “strong response” to the February 14 killing of CRPF personnel was at the core of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's campaign narrative for the Lok Sabha polls.