Pakistan 'may share Mumbai probe

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Posted by Snehsan

Pakistan says it is considering an Indian request to send a team to share information on investigations into last year's Mumbai attacks.

Last week Pakistan admitted the attacks were partly planned on its soil. More than 170 people died when 10 men launched attacks in several parts of India's financial capital in November. Meanwhile, India's Home Minister P Chidambaram told the BBC the country was "better prepared" against terrorist attacks such as the ones in Mumbai.

'Conspiracy'
"We are seriously considering sending an FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) team to India to share information on the Mumbai tragedy with the investigators there," Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani told reporters in the eastern city of Lahore. Shortly after the attacks, the Pakistani government had to reverse a decision to send the head of its intelligence agency - the ISI - to India, reportedly due to pressure from the army.
Last week, the interior ministry said that "a part of the conspiracy" to attack Mumbai was hatched in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi.
The conspiracy was masterminded by members of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba militant, it said.
According to the ministry, a probe by the FIA had found that at least nine suspected attackers had sailed from Karachi to Mumbai in three boats in November.
Prior to this, they had stayed at two houses in Karachi, and had received training on the Karachi beach. The ministry said the findings were of a preliminary nature, and needed additional information for successful prosecutions. It said it had sought answers to 30 questions posed by the Indian authorities. Pakistani officials say they have indicted eight people on the basis of the FIA's findings, six of whom have already been arrested. But legal experts in Pakistan say the prosecution of these people would not be possible in the absence of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving Mumbai attacker, who is being held in India. Pakistan's new deputy attorney-general, Sardar Ghazi, told media on Wednesday that Pakistan was considering making a request to India to hand over Kasab to Pakistan. India has not commented on these developments. India has in the past accused the ISI of promoting militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba as a tool to destabilise Kashmir. Relations between India and Pakistan have worsened considerably since the November attacks.

'Better prepared'
In his interview with the BBC, Mr Chidambaram said the main terrorist threat to India came from abroad, but admitted that there were many cells of Islamic militants operating in the country. Most of them were funded, trained and supported from abroad, in particular from Pakistan, he said. Mr Chidambaram became home affairs minister in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. He said he had set himself two tasks before the general election, due before May. He said he wanted to make sure India was better prepared to deal with a terrorist attack and to respond to any future attack swiftly, decisively and in a deterrent manner.

Mr Chidambaram said there was an overall plan to challenge the very idea of India as an open secular and plural society. "I can't connect all the dots, but it's quite clear that there is a plan to destabilise the country," he said.