By IANS,
New Delhi : Bolstered by the filing of the chargesheet in a US court against US-Pakistani terror suspect David Coleman Headley, India Thursday asked Pakistan to “unravel the full conspiracy behind the Mumbai terrorist attack and other terrorist plots which continue to emanate from its soil”.
India also asked Pakistan “not to be selective” in the fight against terrorism and pointed out that the chargesheet against Headley showed that militant outfits like Laskhar-e-Taiba, Harkat ul Jehadi (HuJI) and the Al Qaeda continued to plot terror attacks against New Delhi.
New Delhi welcomed the investigation and chargesheet filed in a US court against Headley by the FBI on Dec 7 for conducting “extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai for more than two years” preceding the 26/11 terrorist attack in Mumbai in which 166 people were killed.
They are “important steps in exposing the wider conspiracy behind the Mumbai terrorist attack, and other acts of terrorism, for bringing to justice those responsible for mindless violence against innocent people”, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said here.
India has made it clear that it will seek access for interrogation and extradition of Headley.
The information available from the charges filed points to the fact that organisations, including LeT, HuJI and Al Qaeda, having sanctuaries in Pakistan, continue to remain active in plotting new acts of terrorism, targeting India as well as other countries, he said.
Applying facile distinctions amongst these organisations can only be counter-productive in the fight against terrorism, which cannot be selective, the spokesperson said amid a growing feeling here that while Pakistan has taken on the Taliban that has turned against the Pakistani state, it has not cracked down on anti-India militant outfits.
Alluding to the visit of the FBI team to Pakistan after briefing Indian intelligence officials here, the spokesperson said India “expects Pakistan to follow the leads provided, and unravel the full conspiracy behind the Mumbai terrorist attack and other terrorist plots which continue to emanate from its soil”.
“The onus is on Pakistan to act with unalloyed determination against terrorism, its leadership and ideologues so as to eliminate the space which these elements continue to enjoy in Pakistan, and to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in its territory,” he stressed.
India’s strongly-worded reminder to Pakistan reflects the increasing exasperation in the country over Islamabad’s lack of adequate action against the perpetrators of the Nov 26, 2008 Mumbai carnage which has stalled the peace process between the two countries.