Chandigarh, Nov 28 (IANS) Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Saturday laughed off an episode in which a jailed terrorist called up Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and other top officials posing as Mukherjee that virtually brought nuclear neighbours to the brink of a war last year.
Mukherjee did not say much when asked about recent reports that Pakistan-based terrorist Omar Sheikh, who was released after an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked in December 1999, had called up top officials of the Pakistani government and the army after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks last year.

“It was not possible to talk directly whenever we talk to some minister or other official on phone. Someone else picks it up (phone),” Mukherjee said while laughing at the episode.

He said that the matter was a year old.

There was tension in India-Pakistan diplomatic channels when Zardari received a phone call from someone posing as Mukherjee and threatening the president after the terror attack in Mumbai killed 166 people.

The Indian government had denied that Mukherjee or anyone else from India ever made the call.

A Pakistani daily recently revealed that the call was made by Omar Sheikh from the Hyderabad prison in Pakistan using a British SIM card from a mobile phone illegally provided to him inside the prison.