Pakistan unwilling to act against Mumbai accused

NI Wire

New Delhi

Mon, 05 Jan 2009: 

A day after India handed over dossier on Mumbai terror strikes, Pakistan unwillingness to act against the accused continues as on Tuesday it said the evidence provided by India was insufficient.

Although Pakistan has not responded officially yet and is expected to reply to India in a day or two, reports blished in the Pakistani media claims that Pakistan has made it clear to the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher that the evidences brought to Pakistan are too insufficient to be made a ground for any action.

Earlier on Monday raising its diplomatic offensive against Pakistan, India handed over the dossier to the Pakistan High Commissioner Shahid Malik in Delhi and to the Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir in Islamabad, undercutting Pakistan’s alibi for refusing to act against terrorists on the ground that India has not shared evidence with it.

The dossier of incriminating materials from the probe into the Mumbai strikes included information on interrogations, confession of Ajmal Kasab-the lone captured terrorist, weapons and other articles recovered from Kasab and other killed terrorists that bear the inscription “Made in Pakistan”, and telephone intercepts between the attackers and their Lashkar-e-Taiba handlers in Pakistan.

Well acquainted with the Pakistan’s disposition towards terrorists, gained from earlier experiences, India simultaneously handed over the similar dossier to other countries, including US, UK, China, and Israel who lost their citizens in the deadly strikes, and will handover to the UN Security Council and G-8 countries on Tuesday to mount more international pressure.

Continuing its demand to extradite Mumbai terror accused, India on Monday ruled out any possibility of conducting a joint probe with Pakistan over evidence on the Mumbai attacks and vowed to go to any extent for the evidence of Mumbai strikes.

Richard Boucher, who was in New Delhi on Monday, told reporters that evidences so far collected by the Indian investigating agencies and FBI suggest that the Perpetrators had links with the Pakistani soil.

Saying “the attackers had clear links that lead to Pakistani soil”, Boucher said the US wants Islamabad to investigate the information provided by New Delhi, follow available leads and track down attackers to prevent any similar attack in future.