The much-anticipated visit of Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik to India was delayed by nearly three-and-a-half hours on Friday due to a confusion whether his military plane can land at the Indian Air Force (IAF) base at Palam here.
India put its foot down against the US-made C-130 plane of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) with snooping equipment on board landing at the Technical Area of the IAF Palam base citing security reasons.
As a result, Malik’s aircraft landed at the civilian T3 terminal of the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport.
The confusion, according to government sources, was triggered by the Pakistani side, which had not intimated on which plane Malik would fly into India.
The information that he would fly in a military plane was received by the Indian High Commission officials in Islamabad from Malik’s office only on Thursday night. Pakistan wanted to land the C-130 plane flown by PAF officers at the Indian Air Force base.
The C-130 plane, however, landed at the civilian facility around 5.30 pm, nearly three-and-a-half hours later than scheduled time of 2 pm.