CBI director's visit to Pakistan cancelled after Kabul blast

The visit of CBI Director Vijay Shankar to Pakistan was cancelled following the car bomb blast outside the Indian Mission in Kabul and India accusing Pakistan of the Inter Services Intelligence's role in the same.

Shankar was slated to leave for Islamabad on Monday along with a team of officials from the home and external affairs ministries for a meeting with Pakistan's Federal Investigating Agency.

This was a return visit of the CBI director as the FIA director general along with a team had visited the CBI last year.

Though there was no official word about the cancellation of the CBI chief's visit to Pakistan, sources attributed it to the heightened tension between India and Pakistan following the car-bomb attack on the Indian Mission in Kabul that claimed the lives of four Indians, including Defence Attache Brigadier R D Mehta and Counsellor Venkateswara Rao.

Preliminary investigations into the bomb blast pointed to Pakistan's ISI, which has been agitated over the presence of the Indian Mission in Kabul and consulates in other Afghan provinces including Kandahar.