Not ruling out the military option, India on Tuesday hardened its stance against Pakistan, saying New Delhi had the “right to protect” its territory
Pranab says India has right to protect itself; Pakistan offers a joint probe
NEW DELHI/ ISLAMABAD: Not ruling out the military option, India on Tuesday hardened its stance against Pakistan, saying New Delhi had the “right to protect” its territory and take “appropriate action” to deal with terror strikes emanating from across the border. Islamabad, on the other hand, offered to join the probe into the Mumbai attack.
“What I am saying is every sovereign country has its right to protect its territorial integrity and take appropriate action as and when it feels it is necessary to take that appropriate action,” foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee told NDTV in an interview on Tuesday evening.
Declining to rule out military strikes against terror camps in Pakistan, the minister told the channel: “As and when it takes place you will get to know. Nobody publicises or advertises it. I am not not making any comment on military option.”
The foreign minister’s remark came less than day before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has been sent to defuse tensions, arrives in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Mukherjee said: “Nobody is talking about military action.” He was replying to a question about India’s next move in the context of US President-elect Barack Obama’s comments that a sovereign country must take its own decision.
“Time will show and you will come to know. But we appreciate the responses which we have received from all over the world, including from Barack Obama,” he said.
Clearly India doesn’t want to send any reassuring signals to Pakistan in the wake of the audacious attack on Mumbai.
Instead, Mukherjee urged Islamabad to hand over the terror suspects wanted in India and show its genuine interest in cooperating with New Delhi. The list was handed over to Pakistan high commissioner Shahid Malik on Monday.
Pakistan, meanwhile, said it would look into the list and also offered to assist India in the investigations into the Mumbai attack.
Speaking in a televised address, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said: “We are ready to jointly go into the depth of this issue and we are ready to compose a team that could help you [India]…Pakistan wants good relations with India,” he said.
Though Qureshi didn’t say anything about the list of fugitives, information minister Sherry Rehman stonewalled India’s demand saying: “We have to look at it [the list] formally once we get it and we will frame a response.”
Heading the list is underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, wanted for allegedly masterminding the 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai. Dawood, who was designated as a “global terrorist” by the US Treasury Department in 2003, is believed to be living in a palatial house Karachi.
India has also asked Pakistan to arrest and hand over Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafez Saeed, Jaish-e-Mohammad founder Maulana Masood Azhar, who was freed in exchange for the passengers of Indian airlines flight IC814 hijacked to Afghanistan in 1999. He later went on to orchestrate a string of deadly attacks against Indian targets, including the attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001 along with the Let.
Another name on the list is that of Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, who has been convicted in India for killing Kashmiri pandits.
This is not the first time that such a list has been given to Pakistan. It is unlikely that the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will let the current democratic government in Pakistan, even if it wants to, hand over these fugitives to India.
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