India, world want more from Pakistan

NEW DELHI: International pressure continued to mount on Pakistan to take tougher action against the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage even as Islamabad carried on with its crackdown on the Jamaat-ud Daawa, front organisation of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, on Friday.

While the US and the UK said that Pakistan should get tough and ensure similar strikes don’t happen again, Germany said just banning the Jamaat wasn’t enough.

Informed sources said India was trying to cash in on the rare global support by pushing the US and other friends to force Islamabad to hand over at least one of those behind the attack. In this case, a source said, India wants suspected mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. But this could not be verified. Also, it remains unclear if Pakistan will give in to international pressure.

US deputy secretary of state John Negroponte flew to New Delhi on Friday from Islamabad and briefed India on his talks with Pakistani leaders, promising there was no let-up in pressure on president Asif Ali Zardari.  

Negroponte had done some tough talking in Pakistan, asking the authorities to continue with the crackdown on the Jamaat and seeking action against other terror outfits such as the Pasban Ahl-e-Hadith and Al-Rashid Trust.

Negroponte, who met external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi, said, “We think it is imperative that these attacks be thoroughly investigated and we think it is also imperative that those responsible for perpetrating these attacks be brought to account.”

Negroponte, who also met national security adviser MK Narayanan and foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon, said “all diplomatic partners” should contribute to the effort of ensuring that those behind the Mumbai attacks are brought to justice.
With Washington’s dependence on Pakistan to fight the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other jihadi elements along the Afghan border also playing on his mind, Negroponte assured Islamabad that the US would work with New Delhi to defuse the tension sparked by the Mumbai attack.

Other world leaders too have backed India, asking Pakistan to take tough action against the plotters of the audacious attack.

Britain’s prime minister Gordon Brown will arrive in Delhi on Sunday on an impromptu visit to express his solidarity while Germany’s interior minister Wolfgang Schauble was in the capital on Friday on a similar mission.

Schauble, who held talks with home minister P Chidambaram and Narayanan, said banning the Jamaat was “not sufficient” and Pakistan must act to prevent further strikes. He said there was evidence to show that the terror network behind the Mumbai attack had its origins in Pakistan.

In Chennai, Britain’s high commissioner in India Sir Richard Stagg said there was “clear evidence” that the Mumbai terror attacks have “links” to Pakistan-based outfits and Islamabad has been asked to “take effective and appropriate” measures against them.
Meanwhile, Islamabad again promised not to allow its soil to be used by terrorists against India.

“But our own investigations cannot proceed beyond a certain point without provision of credible information and evidence pertaining to the Mumbai attacks,” foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in a televised statement.

The crackdown on the Jamaat-ud-Daawa continued as officials sealed its offices and detained its cadres across the country even as JuD chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed wrote a letter to the UN, seeking to know on what grounds the world body had banned the organisation.

Pakistan’s defence minister Ahmed Mukhtar said the government acted against the Jamaat-ud-Daawa in accordance with the UN resolution to prevent the country from being declared a terrorist state. “We are part of the international community and cannot afford a confrontation with the whole world,” Mukhtar said.