India says Pakistan blocking Mumbai-attack probe

Sep 6, 2009, 9:44 GMT

New Delhi - India has said neighbouring Pakistan is stifling the investigation into last year's Mumbai terrorist attacks, with Delhi continuing to suspect Pakistani state involvement, media reports said Sunday.

India claims that the Pakistan-based militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) planned and executed the three-day attack that was carried out by 10 gunmen on India's financial capital and in which more than 160 people were killed.

In an interview with the NDTV network, India's Federal Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said Pakistan's inaction was 'atrocious' and likened Islamabad's demand of more evidence to a 'charade.'

Chidambaram told the news channel that Pakistan was reluctant to act against the mastermind of the attacks, Hafiz Saeed, the LeT founder.

He said 'enough evidence' had been provided by Indian agencies that the radical cleric had conducted the final drill for the attacks and also trained and made phone calls to the militants.

Saeed, currently chief of the Pakistan-based charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, has been charged in India with planning the attacks but remains free in Pakistan after the High Court in Lahore released him in early June, saying there were insufficient grounds to detain him.

Chidambaram added that during the training, Saeed was accompanied by a 'Major General' who could have been a serving Pakistan officer.

'We have never ruled out state actors although Pakistan has maintained that only non-state actors were involved,' Chidambaram said.

In an interview with the al-Jazeera network, Chidambaram said Pakistan was 'deliberately' stifling the investigation into the attacks.

'We are thoroughly, totally dissatisfied with the Pakistani response.'

He said India had given Pakistan evidence but Islamabad had not even started the court trial of the suspects. 'Where is the trial? Where is the charge-sheet? When is the trial starting? When is the first witness being examined?' he said in the interview.

Asked if Pakistan was deliberately holding up the probe, Chidambaram replied: 'Yes, regrettably, that is the answer, but yes.'

The Indian minister rejected Pakistan Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani's insistence on resumption of the bilateral peace process and reiterated that action against the Mumbai attackers was a condition for restarting the dialogue.

Tensions escalated between the two-nuclear armed neighbours after the Mumbai attacks, to the point where India suspended the 5-year-old peace talks aimed at improving relations and solving contentious issues.

Chidambaram, who is travelling to the United States this week will urge Washington to press Islamabad on dismantling terrorist infrastructure in that country, and the prosecution of those accused of the Mumbai attack, the PTI news agency reported.

He is due to meet his US counterpart, Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and National Security Advisor James Jones during his four-day visit, beginning Tuesday.