India formally accuses Pakistan of involvement in Mumbai attacks

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says the intricacy of attacks indicate Pakistani government link.

By David Montero

posted January 06, 2009 at 9:55 am EST

The growing diplomatic row between India and Pakistan reached new heights this week, with India's prime minister formally accusing the Pakistani state of involvement in the deadly attacks in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), which left 172 dead.

"Official agencies" in Pakistan supported the militants who attacked Mumbai in November, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, making India's sharpest accusation yet that Pakistan's government was involved," Bloomberg reports.

"There is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan," Singh told chief ministers of India's states today at a meeting on counter-terrorism....

The comments by Singh "are the most explicit accusation so far" of a role by Pakistani official agencies, said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi-based research group.

The accusation comes after India on Monday handed over a trove of alleged evidence to Pakistan and demanded that it act, according to the Pakistani English-language newspaper Dawn.

The evidence handed to Pakistan rests largely on the interrogation of the lone surviving gunman, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, also known as Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, who is said to hail from the Pakistani Punjab.

He has reportedly told authorities that he and nine other gunmen were Pakistanis, that he was trained in Pakistan and that the people behind the attack were still there. Pakistan has said it has no record of Kasab as a Pakistani citizen.

Other evidence included: conversations between the alleged handlers in Pakistan and the gunmen during the attack; recovered weapons; and data retrieved from global positioning system and satellite phones. Islamabad says there is no proof the attacks were launched from its soil.

Pakistan has so far responded with skepticism, according to The News, a popular English daily in Pakistan.

Pakistan said it was examining the contents of the 'information' passed on to it and will 'evaluate' it. However, it proposed setting up of a joint commission to be headed by the respective national security advisers.

"Most of it has been leaked to the media anyway, so there was nothing new. So many people have a copy of the dossier now, that we will not be surprised if we see it in the media here. We understand that Pakistan has made quite a headway in its own investigations and this is a good sign", [Interior Ministry] sources maintained.

US officials this week echoed the statements coming out of India, says The Daily Times, another leading English-language newspaper in Pakistan.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher praised on Monday the exchange of information between India and Pakistan on the Mumbai terror attacks, but said it is clear the "attacks have links to Pakistan or lead to Pakistani soil", reported the [Associated Press Pakistan] news agency.

Boucher's comments came after the neighbours handed each other information gathered by them. He said the latest exchange was a positive step, and hoped that the two countries would also share the results of investigations based on the information shared. He said the perpetrators could only be found if the South Asian rivals cooperated. He called on the neighbours to cooperate with each other for peace.

In a different article, The Daily Times adds that India has begun a new diplomatic push to bring attention to the new evidence:

India began a diplomatic offensive to build pressure on Pakistan on Monday, with its Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon briefing foreign envoys to New Delhi on the 'evidence' linking Pakistan-based organisations in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November. Menon briefed envoys from over a dozen countries including the US, the UK, Israel, France, Japan, Germany, Turkey and Canada.

As elections loom in India in May, Prime Minister Singh's government is under increasing pressure to clamp down on terrorism, according to Bloomberg.

Singh's government will seek re-election in May amid public demands for improved security. At least 1,500 people were killed in attacks last year. India has been combating rebels in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and Maoist guerrillas in the southern and eastern regions....

Singh said Pakistanis have infiltrated terrorists into India through Nepal and Bangladesh as well as the India-Pakistan cease-fire line in Kashmir, which forms the de-facto border between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

But India must tread a careful line in its response to the Mumbai attacks, Bloomberg adds.

Singh repeated his government's commitment to confront Pakistan through diplomacy rather than armed force. With the global economic crisis slowing growth in both India and Pakistan, neither can afford a military clash, officials say.

The U.S. fears a conflict would scuttle Pakistan's attempts to contain the Taliban insurgency along its border with Afghanistan and has urged restraint on both India and Pakistan.