SHILLONG/NEW DELHI: India’s prime minister said yesterday he hoped sense would prevail in Pakistan over tackling militancy and reiterated a demand that Islamabad hand over those suspected of plotting the deadly attacks in Mumbai.

In a rare echo of Indian criticism of Pakistan since the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan’s main human rights group said the government could not deny its terrorism problem or lapse into complacency now that the threat of war with India was waning.

India has blamed Pakistan-based militants for the attacks in Mumbai, in which 179 people were killed, and which led to a surge in tension between the nuclear-armed neighbors despite Pakistani condemnation of the violence.

“We are committed to rooting out terrorism and we sincerely hope that better sense will prevail with Pakistan,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told reporters in the northeastern town of Shillong.

Faced with global pressure to act, Pakistan launched raids on militants on its soil after the Mumbai attacks in November. But India said Pakistan was not sincere and needed to do more.

India wants Pakistan to dismantle what it says are camps training militants to attack India, and extradite at least 40 suspects. Pakistan denies fomenting trouble in India and says it would act if India provided credible evidence.

“The leadership of Pakistan would recognize ... the demand from all civilized territories that the perpetrators must be brought to book,” Singh said. “We hope that these criminals will be handed over to us to face trial in our country.”

In the Pakistani city of Lahore, I.A. Rahman, secretary-general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said the government had to face up to the terrorist problem. “The government of Pakistan must no longer stay in a state of self-denial,” Rahman told a news conference.

While tension remains high, most analysts say fear of Indian strikes on suspected militants targets in Pakistan, which could spark war, was easing. “We would also like to caution the government of Pakistan against lapsing into its traditional complacency with the disappearance of the war clouds,” Rahman said.

“Blinking at the existence of terrorist outfits within the country, some open and others disguised, will amount to self-annihilation and greater isolation,” he said. “The state’s commitment to root out terrorist groups must be total.”

India says it is preparing a dossier of evidence that it will share with “friendly countries,” Singh reiterated that India does not want war with Pakistan “but it must hand over the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks.” Last month, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee asked Islamabad to hand over 40 suspected militants who are free and living in Pakistan.

India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram plans to visit the United States next week to share evidence with American investigators, the New Delhi Television news channel reported. Chidambaram met United States Ambassador to India David Mulford yesterday, a senior US Embassy official in New Delhi said, a meeting that came in the backdrop of an FBI team arriving in India to help with the Mumbai investigations.

Security-related issues were the focus of Chidambaram-Mulford meeting, which lasted for about 45 minutes. This was their second meeting in two weeks. The meeting was held amid the backdrop of Washington’s willingness to collaborate with New Delhi on the Mumbai case.

The timing assumes significance with it taking place after India was hit by three bomb blasts in Guwahati in northeastern state of Assam on Thursday. They discussed intelligence under which any India-centric information gathered by a western country will be seamlessly conveyed to India, ahead of anything wrong actually taking place is here.

In another development, noting that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Zarar Shah’s confessions “have not been denied at the highest levels in Islamabad”, a leading Pakistani daily said the government should come clean on the matter or it will “continue to be deemed guilty until proven innocent”.

In a strongly worded editorial, headlined “Taking stock”, the influential Dawn newspaper said yesterday unless Islamabad comes clean on the reported confession of Shah and the outcome of its probe into 26/11, Pakistan “will not be in a position to counter criticism that facts are being withheld and we will continue to be deemed guilty (of involvement in the Mumbai mayhem) until proven innocent”.

— With input from Nilofar Suhrawardy