By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : India has demanded that Pakistan take “more decisive action” against Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
“We want Saeed to be tried for his Mumbai attack,” Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said in an interview Tuesday with the Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
“They are trying to camouflage the whole idea to suit themselves. India cannot be lulled into some kind of satisfaction that they are proceeding against them. We can see through the game,” he said.
Saeed was placed under virtual house arrest Monday for certain inflammatory speeches he made in some part of Pakistan and was prevented from leading prayers. He also faces a police complaint for allegedly soliciting funds for his banned purported charity.
“What India is interested in, according to the six dossiers provided by India to the Pakistani government, [is] evidence we provided to show how Saeed was the chief conspirator in the attack on Mumbai,” Krishna said. “So we want Saeed to be tried for his Mumbai attack.”
Krishna said India would “appeal to our friends across the board to prevail on Pakistan to see the part of reason and bring to justice all those behind the attack on Mumbai.”
He suggested that if India were attacked again it might not show the same restraint against Pakistan. “I hope there won’t be any attacks, but if there is an attack on India, India is fully prepared to meet [it],” he said.
Terror on both the east and western borders of Pakistan will be atop the agenda when Krishna meets Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Saturday in New York.
The terrorist attack that killed 166 people in Mumbai last November will be India’s “focal point” of the talks, Krishna said.