Prime minister Manmohan Singh repeated on Friday India’s charge of terrorists using Pakistani territory for the Mumbai attack
NEW DELHI: Prime minister Manmohan Singh repeated on Friday India’s charge of terrorists using Pakistani territory for the Mumbai attack and urged the international community to help New Delhi bring the masterminds of the carnage to book. If no action was taken, terrorism would come home to roost, he told reporters at a joint interaction with visiting Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
The prime minister said he had told every world leader who called him after the Mumbai strike that “the people of India feel a sense of hurt and anger as never seen before. Therefore, it is the obligation of all concerned to ensure the perpetrators of this horrible crime are brought to book. That is our message to anybody who has come here or who has telephoned me”.
Singh did not mention Pakistan but said the territory of a neighbouring country had been used for the attack. One wonders what prevented him from doing so, considering India has charged the ISI and the Pakistan army with having a hand in the attack.
“We expect the world community to recognise that in this case, not only we but other relevant countries have also come to the same conclusion that the territory of a neighbouring country has been used for perpetrating this crime.”
The prime minister was merely making it clear that it was not just India but the US, UK and Israel had evidence that the Lashkar-e-Toiba, which is based near Lahore, with the help of the ISI was behind this.
All these countries agree LeT is involved and the training and planning took place in Pakistan, but the US is not yet publicly mentioning either the Pakistan army or its powerful intelligence agency, the ISI. This could be because Washington needs the help of the Pakistan military to tackle the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the miscellaneous jihadi groups concentrated in the tribal areas on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Singh mentioned that he was awaiting Islamabad’s action and refused to divulge what India’s next move might be. But the government is now working towards an international consensus to work against terror. If at any time New Delhi believes it needs to strike at LeT in Pakistan, it would want the international community to understand its compulsions for doing so.
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