ISLAMABAD: An urgent meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) has been summoned on Monday (today) to discuss the recent ‘misleading’ remarks on Mumbai attacks made by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. “NSC meeting suggested to Prime Minister to discuss recent misleading media statement regarding Bombay incident. Being held tomorrow morning,” Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor said in a tweet on Sunday. The meeting, to be chaired by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, is likely to be attended by Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chairman, all three services chiefs, Inter-Services Intelligence director general, national security adviser and foreign and interior ministers among others. In an exclusive interview to a local newspaper, Nawaz had criticised the apparent delay in the conclusion of the Mumbai attacks trial. “Militant organisations are active. Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai? Explain it to me. Why can’t we complete the trial?” he had asked in the interview. Mainstream Indian news outlets, since the interview was published on Saturday, have been playing up Sharif’s statement on the attacks as a ‘confession’ of Pakistan’s role in the Mumbai incident. However, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in a statement defended Nawaz Sharif’s remarks, saying the party and its supreme leader “need no certificate from anybody on their commitment and capacity to preserve, protect and promote Pakistan’s national security.””[The] statement of the Quaid [Nawaz] has been grossly misinterpreted by the Indian media,” said the statement issued by an unnamed PML-N spokesperson. “Unfortunately, a section of Pakistani electronic and social media has intentionally or unintentionally not only validated but has lent credence to the malicious propaganda of Indian media without going through the full facts of the statement,” it added. Rubbishing the remarks terming Nawaz Sharif’s statement an attack on Pakistan’s national security, the communiqué said it was Sharif who, “resisting all pressures, took the most important and most difficult decision on national security in Pakistan’s history by making the country a nuclear power in May 1998.” Published in Daily Times, May 14th 2018.