ISLAMABAD, Dec 2: Pakistan urged India on Tuesday to provide credible information about people named in a list, provided to Islamabad, of suspects allegedly involved in the Mumbai terrorist attacks. A senior interior ministry official said the list was the same which New Delhi had been providing for several years and contained names of Pakistanis and Indian nationals. He said Pakistan had repeatedly told India that some of these people were not in Pakistan and that solid evidence was needed for taking action against those who were in the country. The list included the name of an Indian national and an alleged gangster Dawood Ibrahim, founder of militant organisation Jaish-i-Mohammad Maulana Masood Azhar, founder of another banned militant outfit Lashkar-i-Tayba Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, some Sikh Indian nationals who were allegedly involved in an abortive secessionist movement and said to be hiding in Pakistan.
Pakistan would do a lot to reduce tensions with India if it did the right thing and cracked down on Lashkar-e-Taiba. Whether or not they were behind the Mumbai attack (and I gather the probability is high that they were), the Pakistani government has already banned them, and they have admitted to the attacks on the Indian Parliament in 2001. It would be a show of good faith to India. The question is, does Zardari have enough real power to crack down on L-e-T even if he wanted to? Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
India has accused a senior leader of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of orchestrating last week's terror attacks that killed at least 172 people here, and demanded the Pakistani government turn him over and take action against the group. Just two days before hitting the city, the group of 10 terrorists who ravaged India's financial capital communicated with Yusuf Muzammil and four other Lashkar leaders via a satellite phone that they left behind on a fishing trawler they hijacked to get to Mumbai, a senior Mumbai police official told The Wall Street Journal. The entire group also underwent rigorous training in a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the official said. Mr. Muzammil had earlier been in touch with an Indian Muslim extremist who scoped out Mumbai locations for possible attack before he was arrested early this year, said another senior Indian police official. The Indian man, Faheem Ahmed Ansari, had in his possession layouts drawn up for the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel and Mumbai's main railway station, both prime targets of last week's attack, the police official said. Mr. Ansari, who also made sketches and maps of locations in southern Mumbai that weren't attacked, had met Mr. Muzammil and trained at the same Lashkar camp as the terrorists in last week's attack, an official said.
India has accused a senior leader of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of orchestrating last week's terror attacks that killed at least 172 people here, and demanded the Pakistani government turn him over and take action against the group.
Just two days before hitting the city, the group of 10 terrorists who ravaged India's financial capital communicated with Yusuf Muzammil and four other Lashkar leaders via a satellite phone that they left behind on a fishing trawler they hijacked to get to Mumbai, a senior Mumbai police official told The Wall Street Journal. The entire group also underwent rigorous training in a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the official said.
Mr. Muzammil had earlier been in touch with an Indian Muslim extremist who scoped out Mumbai locations for possible attack before he was arrested early this year, said another senior Indian police official. The Indian man, Faheem Ahmed Ansari, had in his possession layouts drawn up for the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel and Mumbai's main railway station, both prime targets of last week's attack, the police official said.
Mr. Ansari, who also made sketches and maps of locations in southern Mumbai that weren't attacked, had met Mr. Muzammil and trained at the same Lashkar camp as the terrorists in last week's attack, an official said.
