NEW DELHI, 2 October 2006 — India said yesterday that it will provide Pakistan with “evidence” regarding involvement of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistan-based terror groups in the July 11 Bombay blasts. The announcement was made by Shiv Shanker Menon soon after he assumed office as India’s new foreign secretary.
Indian police alleged a day earlier that the ISI was behind the bombings that killed more than 200 people in Bombay, India’s economic and entertainment center.
Pakistan immediately rejected the accusation and demanded evidence.
“This (evidence) is something that we will certainly take up with the government of Pakistan,” said Menon. “We will judge them (Pakistan) not by their verbal actions, but what they actually do,” said Menon, whose previous position was India’s ambassador to Pakistan.
The issue would be raised during forthcoming foreign secretary-level India-Pakistan talks. India is ready to present evidence, but at the right time and the right place, Menon said suggesting that he will place the proof on table when he meets his Pakistani counterpart.
Bombay police chief A.N. Roy said Saturday at least 12 Indian men and 11 Pakistanis had been involved in the bombings. Many of the Indians alleged to have been involved had visited Pakistan several times and trained at Lashkar bases in Bahawalpur town in Punjab province, close to the Indian frontier, he said.
One of the Pakistani men brought over about 15 to 20 kg of RDX explosives to make the bombs in Bombay, and funds to stage the attack came from Pakistan, Roy said.
The South Asian rivals agreed to set up the joint agency on terrorism after talks between Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of a Non-Aligned summit in Havana two weeks ago. The two leaders also agreed to resume a peace process which India had frozen following the Bombay attacks. The agency has come in for strong criticism from Indian opposition parties and most security experts even before its formation. Indian critics say that a similar counterterrorism mechanism was already in place and had failed to make any progress and they did not see how this one would be different. Islamabad could not be expected to act against its own military spy agency which New Delhi blames for many violent attacks and subversive activities across the country, they say.
Some Indian analysts, however, say that the mechanism needs to be tested and the Bombay bombings are a fitting case.
Menon, who was India’s envoy to Pakistan before being named foreign secretary and is seen as one of the architects of the joint panel, defended it. “We will judge its success or its failure by how it deals with it (terrorism) and what actions Pakistan takes on terrorism,” he said.
Meanwhile, India’s main Hindu nationalist opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, called on the government to sever ties with Islamabad. Pakistan’s ambassador to India “should be immediately summoned and categorically told that India will reconsider continuation of diplomatic relations with Pakistan,” BJP President Rajnath Singh told reporters.
“This will definitely be a test of the resilience of the India-Pakistan relationship,” C. Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi-based strategic affairs expert, said of the bombing probe. However, he said it would probably not push the two countries back to the brink of war.
— Additional input from agencies
