Pakistan's demand for evidence
a delaying tactic, says India
By Manish Chand
New
Delhi, Dec 12 (IANS) India has “enough evidence” to link elements
in its territory to the Mumbai terror outrage and sees Pakistan's
demand for evidence as “nothing but a delaying tactic” to
avoid dismantling "terrorist infrastructure" in
that country, government sources said here Friday.
“It's
absolutely redundant and nothing but a delaying tactic,” high-level
sources told IANS in response to Pakistan's demand for “credible
information and evidence” about the Mumbai terror attacks,
that killed 179 people, including 26 foreigners.
There
is a variety of evidence that establishes the complicity of
elements of the ISI (Pakistan's spy service Inter Services
Intelligence) and elements of the army acting in collusion
with jihadi groups, the sources said.
“India
can provide this evidence in a court of law as is the procedure
with criminal and terrorist cases,” the sources, who only
spoke on condition they were not named, maintained.
If
India has enough evidence, what is preventing it from sharing
it with Pakistan?
“You share information with somebody who does not know. Pakistan
has the knowledge of what happened,” the sources said.
"Our
own investigations cannot proceed beyond a certain point without
provision of credible information and evidence pertaining
to Mumbai attacks," Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah
Mehmood Qureshi said in a televised statement Friday.
Pakistan's
insistence on evidence comes on a day when the Dawn, a respected
Pakistani daily, published a report that quotes the father
of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured by Indian
authorities after the Mumbai attacks, saying he could recognize
the photograph of his son which was repeatedly flashed on
TV screens and in newspaper reports.
"I
was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself
it could not have been my son," the newspaper quoted
Amir Kasab as saying in his village in Faridkot. "Now
I have accepted it."
Part
of India's reluctance to share evidence is the past experience
of dealing with Pakistani authorities in terror-related cases.
In
2002, India shared evidence of the complicity of Jaish-e-Mohammad
(JuM) and Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the Dec 13, 2001 attack
on Indian parliament. “Information was shared. But nothing
happened,” the sources pointed out.
The
sources pointed out that India has shared some information
and evidence on the Mumbai attacks with “the US and other
friendly countries.”
Friendly
countries have come to the same conclusion independently and
jointly with Indian authorities about the complicity of Pakistan-based
elements in the Mumbai attacks, sources said.
Sources
pointed out that it was clear evidence that explains the swiftness
with which the UN Security Council banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa,
a public front for the outlawed LeT suspected of masterminding
the Mumbai carnage, and put four top LET leaders on the consolidated
list that subject them to assets freeze and travel ban. There
was complete unanimity in the Security Council on banning
JuD and terrorism originating from the Pakistani authority.
“There
is no doubt what needs to be done. It is for the elected government
of Pakistan to act now and dismantle infrastructure of terrorism
in that country,” the sources stressed.
Speaking
in parliament, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee
Thursday asked Pakistan to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure
that ensures no terror attacks are carried out against India
from the Pakistani territory. Mukherjee also told parliament
that he has given a list of 40 fugitives to Pakistan who are
wanted in different terrorist and criminal activities in India,
but Islamabad had done nothing about it.
Under
intense pressure from the US, Pakistan Thursday clamped down
on JuD which has been branded as a terrorist organization
by the UN.
Indian
authorities have released what they said were the names and
Pakistani hometowns of the 10 terrorists who subjected India's
business capital to a terror spree for over three days.
Indo-Asian
News Service
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