Pakistan's support to terrorism harming South Asia: Singh

Oct 11, 2009, 10:28 GMT

New Delhi - Pakistan's support to terrorist groups is causing 'great harm' to South Asia, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Sunday while denying allegations that New Delhi was behind the militancy in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

'The government and people of Pakistan should realize the great harm that (their) patronization of terrorist groups has done to South Asia,' Singh told reporters in Mumbai.

The Indian leader said the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan 'is not what it should be. The rising role of terrorist groups (in the two countries) is a matter of concern to all of us.'

'We have to make adequate preparations to deal with the consequences of this overflow of terrorism from our neighbourhood to our country. We are taking all necessary steps in that direction,' he added.

Singh's comments come three days after a suicide attack outside the Indian embassy in Kabul and after the Pakistani military ended a siege of its army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi Sunday.

India's top diplomat, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, who visited Kabul, has hinted that the attack near the mission which claimed 17 lives, was staged by militants supported by Pakistan.

Singh also demanded that Pakistan should try and punish those who masterminded the Mumbai terror attack last year in which more than 160 people were killed.

The Indian leader said diplomatic pressure from India and the international community had forced Pakistan to admit for the first time that its nationals were involved in the Mumbai carnage.

'They (Pakistan) should investigate all those who are involved (in that attack) including Hafiz Saeed, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and (militant group) Jaish-e-Mohammed. There should be a fair trial which will result in proper punishment being given to them.'

Hafiz Saeed, who heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa group, is also the founder of the LeT, which has been blamed for the Mumbai attacks of November 2008 in which Pakistani militants reached the city by boats.

Singh said, 'for the first time Pakistan admitted that it (attack) had its origins in Pakistan, the conspiracy leading to the tragedy in Mumbai was hatched in Pakistan, that citizens of Pakistan were involved. Pakistan had never before agreed to this, ... so there is some progress.

Singh rejected a charge by Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik that India was behind the rising levels of terrorism in the Pakistani province of Balochistan.

Mentioning the allegations were 'totally wrong,' Singh said. 'There is no question. We are not in the business of exporting terrorism to Pakistan or any other country,' he said.

'The people and government of Pakistan jolly well know that this is a false accusation.'