Paris/New Delhi, Dec 15 (IANS) India Monday said the global community must speak “in one voice” to bring the terrorists behind the Mumbai mayhem to justice and asked Pakistan to deliver on promises to act against Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other anti-India terror outfits.
“What happened in Mumbai was an assault on the prestige of India and an affront to our people,” Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told reporters on the sidelines of a conference between Afghanistan’s neighbours and major powers, held in Paris.
“The perpetrators should be brought to justice and the global community must act together in a robust and firm manner,” Sharma added.
“Well, we have shared (evidence) in the past and even now the world is aware from where they came. It’s not for nothing that the international community has spoken in one voice,” Sharma replied when asked whether India will share whatever evidence it has gathered with Pakistan in connection with the Nov 26 Mumbai attacks.
In the first political encounter between the two countries after the brazen Mumbai attacks, Sharma spoke to Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the conference, but did not have a separate meeting, reliable sources said in New Delhi.
Sharma told Qureshi that Pakistan, in its own interest, must “deliver” on promises to act against LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammad and other outfits in the terror syndicate operating from its soil.
“It is in the interest of Pakistan itself that it delivers. They have to take action to fulfill the assurance that their territory will not be used by organised terror outfits to target India,” Sharma said.
“When it comes to the various outfits, it is not a question of their names. The world knows who they are, whether it is LeT, JeM, Taliban or Al Qaeda, they are part of the same terror syndicate and unfortunately, they are located, when we talk about their operation base, in our neighbourhood.
“And to be precise, in the territory of Pakistan. It is, therefore, important for Pakistan also to act,” Sharma said.
“We did speak to each other and I can assure you it was in a very cordial atmosphere, in a very friendly tone,” was all Qureshi would say even as his government kept on dilly-dallying over craking down on the Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a public front for the LeT.
It is for the UN Security Council to ensure that the decisions taken against the outfits which have been proscribed are implemented by all the member states, Sharma said when asked about reports that the JuD has continued to operate from Pakistan.
The Mumbai savagery, which has attracted unprecedented global attention, overshadowed the one-day talks in Paris aimed at enhancing regional cooperation to improve security and development in Afghanistan.
Besides the US, Russia, China, Britain and Germany, the top UN envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, and the European Union’s top foreign policy officials also attended the meeting.
A joint statement said the meeting focused on fighting drug trafficking and terrorism as well as improving regional economic cooperation.