DRAWING A LINE ‘Islamabad trial is test of their sincerity’
NEW DELHI: The shadow of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks fell on the India-Pakistan peace process on Thursday even as the neighbours were yet to find a mutually convenient date to hold foreign secretary-level talks postponed after the Pathankot airbase attack this month.
“We see the Mumbai terror attack trial in Islamabad as a test of Pakistan’s sincerity in combating terrorism directed against India. The planning, training and financing of the Mumbai terrorist attack was done in Pakistan where 99% of the evidence is,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
Swarup was reacting to reports about Islamabad high court turning down a request to get voice samples of seven suspects charged with the 26/11 attacks on account of the prosecutors not pursuing the matter. Though the spokesman qualified his statement by saying the government did not receive “any word on this through the official channel”, the order is seen as a setback. The Mumbai terror attacks launched by Pakistanbased terrorists that killed 166 people had brought ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours to a new low in 2008.
The Pathankot attack has been blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed and India welcomed the “initial first steps” the neighbour took on its leads in hunting down the attackers. “It is Pakistan’s responsibility to unearth and present the requisite evidence in the ongoing trial so that the perpetrators are brought to justice,” the spokesperson said about the Mumbai attacks case. The Pakistani government had filed an application in the Islamabad high court seeking voice samples of the suspects to compare with the communications intercepted by Indian intelligence agencies and present those before the anti-terrorism court as evidence. But the court dismissed the petition.“As of now, we don’t have a mutually convenient date,” Swarup said when asked about the status of the foreign secretarylevel talks.
“It is not incorrect to say that foreign secretary-level talks will happen in the first fortnight of February. I see no reason why talks should be discontinued despite the Pathankot attack,” Pakistan’s high commissioner to India Abdul Basit told a television channel.
On the progress of the probe by Pakistan in the Pathankot terror strike, Swarup spokesperson said the two governments were in “continuous communication” regarding the matter but refused to give any further details.
India will also raise with Pakistan the issue of a balloon coming from there that was shot down by an Indian Air Force fighter over Rajasthan. “The defence ministry has written to the MEA and we will raise it (the issue) with Pakistan,” Swarup said.
Blame game undermines war on terror, says Pak
ISLAMABAD / NEW DELHI: Pakistan on Thursday said it expected India to go ahead with a planned meeting of foreign secretaries even as it called on New Delhi not to indulge in a blame game because that undermined efforts to counter terrorism.
REUTERSA mock drill at a school in Pakistan’s Peshawar, where educational institutions have been repeatedly targeted by terrorists.
Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit said during a television interview in New Delhi that the two sides had acted maturely after the terror strike on the Pathankot airbase and not disrupted their engagements. “I do not see any reason as to why the talks should not happen,” he said. “Both the sides, the two foreign secretaries, agreed to have a meeting in the very near future. I can tell you they are in touch with each other but as yet they have not been able to pencil in the dates for their meeting,” he said, attributing this to a “scheduling problem”.
In Islamabad, foreign office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said terrorism was not “only India’s problem” and it was “important to do away with the practice of unsubstantiated allegations as it undermines efforts to eliminate… terrorism from our region through a cooperative approach”.
He was reacting to the joint statement on counter-terrorism issued after French president Francois Hollande’s visit to India that specifically asked Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and sought decisive action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-eMohammed (JeM), blamed for the Pathankot attack.Both Basit and Khalilullah raised the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauti Express train and called on India to bring to justice the perpetrators of that attack, which killed more than 40 Pakistanis. Basit acknowledged Pakistani prosecutors had been “struggling for closure” in the Mumbai attacks case because of several problems that arose from what he described as lack of cooperation between the two countries. He said a Pakistani judicial commission came to India almost four years after the Mumbai incident and wasn’t allowed to interview and cross-examine key people. Pakistan was committed to expediting the Mumbai attacks trial but much would hinge on Indian cooperation, he said. If the seven Pakistani suspects in the case were acquitted, it would amount to a “failure” for both countries, he added.
The two sides should not repeat mistakes made in the investigation of the Mumbai attacks while probing the Pathankot incident, Basit said. “Some leads were shared with us by India and we moved immediately, started working on the basis of those leads. Meanwhile, we also constituted a six-member special investigation team. So that demonstrates our seriousness of purpose,” he said. Basit was cagey when asked whether Pakistan had detained Masood Azhar and said, “I personally feel it serves no useful purpose to discuss in public whether JeM leaders or operatives are in protective custody or i