India gives Pakistan evidence over Mumbai attacks
India handed Pakistan detailed evidence on the Mumbai attacks on Monday that included information on interrogations, weapons, and data gleaned from satellite phones that officials said proved Pakistani “elements” were behind the deadly siege.
Indian authorities said the evidence shows that Pakistan-based militants plotted and executed the attacks, but a top diplomat said the gunmen may also have had ties to Pakistani authorities.
“Its hard to believe that something of this scale … could occur without anybody, anywhere in the establishment knowing that this was happening,” India’s Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told reporters in New Delhi on Monday.
Menon dismissed Pakistan’s repeated claims that the attacks were carried out by “non-state actors,” saying, “Even the so-called non-state actors function within a state, are citizens of a state … We don’t think there’s such a thing as non-state actors.”
Menon also called for Pakistan to extradite the suspects so they could be brought “to Indian justice.” Pakistan has said any trials will take place in its own courts.
India has blamed the November attacks that killed 164 people on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based militant group, but Islamabad has resisted the claims and requested evidence showing the attacks were launched from across the border.
Indian officials said the dossier handed to Pakistan — as well as to officials from the foreign countries whose citizens were killed — will make their case, and it is now up to Pakistan to act.
“The material, as you know, is linked to elements in Pakistan,” Menon said.
“We are no longer interested in words,” he added. “We want actual action against the perpetrators.”
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq said the authorities are reviewing the evidence and declined to comment further.
Pakistan has arrested at least two Lashkar leaders accused of planning the attacks and launched a nationwide crackdown on a charity believed to be a front for the militant group.
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