Rice to Pak: Take care of perpetrators or US will act

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is understood to have told Pakistan that there was "irrefutable evidence" of involvement of elements in the country in the Mumbai attacks and that it needs to act urgently and effectively to avert a strong international response, a media report on Saturday said.

"The information emerging after her departure indicates that in her meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani during her four-hour stay in Islamabad, she had told them that Islamabad's options were quite limited," Dawn newspaper said.

Contrary to the formal statements issued by Pakistani authorities and her own statement at the Chaklala Airbase, sources said she "pushed the Pakistani leaders to take care of perpetrators, otherwise the US will act". She is reported to have said that the response needed to be "effective and focused" and that India was thinking on similar lines.

Rice had told the media at Chaklala that there had been no talk of military action and the discussions had focussed on ways of dealing with the problem of terrorism.

Rice was reportedly not ready to listen to Pakistan's grievances about India's alleged interference in Balochistan, the alleged role of Indian consulates along the Afghan border in promoting instability in Pakistan and other such issues.