ISLAMABAD: A former interior minister and PPP senator Rehman Malik on Tuesday asked the government to tell the nation about the status of the request that the previous government had made with Afghanistan to hand over Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah to Pakistan.

Asking the government to disclose the whereabouts of Fazlullah, the newly-appointed chief of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Mr Malik said that as interior minister he had himself handed over a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai asking him to hand over the Taliban commander to Pakistan as he was involved in killings of Pakistanis.

“Is Moulvi Fazlullah in Afghanistan or Pakistan? If he is in Afghanistan, then what is the status of the letters and request that the government had written to Interpol and the Afghan president for his handing over to Pakistan?” asked Mr Malik while taking part in the debate in the Senate on the country’s foreign policy with particular reference to the visits of the prime minister to the US and talks with the Taliban.

The PPP senator also criticised the government for not demanding Fazlullah in exchange for the release of Mullah Baradar. Expressing his surprise over reports of the free movement of Fazlullah between Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said how a person who had been patronising Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Punjabi Taliban had become the TTP chief.

Mr Malik told the house that Fazlullah had crossed the border after receiving injuries and that he also knew of the hospital in Afghanistan where he received treatment.

Rehman Malik, Kalsoom Parveen and Abbas Khan Afridi also lashed out at Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) for its decision to block Nato supplies in protest over drone strikes.

Hasil Bizenjo of the National Party regretted that for the past 60 years, they had failed to even determine the direction of the country’s foreign policy. He warned that Pakistan was heading towards isolation particularly after Iran’s agreement with the west on nuclear issue.

He said the recent sectarian killings in Pakistan were the result of a proxy war between the two countries.

Hinting at “official patronage” of the foreign militants in the country, Mr Bizenjo asked why these militants could not enter India or Iran as the two countries also had long and porous borders.

PML-Q’s Mushahid Hussain said there had been total confusion in the ministry of foreign affairs as the country had “five foreign ministers.” He said Nawaz Sharif was the formal prime minister whereas Sartaj Aziz and Tariq Fatemi were the de facto ministers.

Besides them, he said, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar were also involved in international negotiations.

He expressed his concern over the reports about the heavy US presence in the region, saying that the US was building a huge embassy in Islamabad. He also advised the senators to use their telephones and emails carefully since these were being monitored by the US.

Earlier, during the question hour, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar informed the house that between June 30, 2008 and Oct 31, 2013, the foreign debt, including loan from the International Monetary Fund, had increased by Rs1.909 trillion as a result of depreciation of the rupee.

Responding to another question asked by PPP’s Sughra Imam, the finance minister told the members that there had been an increase of 145 per cent in the salaries of the government employees during the past five years. This increase was in addition to the raise in other allowances.