NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD: India has not exhausted its diplomatic options in its attempt to bring the Mumbai attack plotters to justice, India's foreign minister said yesterday. "We have not reached the end of the road," Pranab Mukherjee told CNN-IBN television channel.
But he also said that India had enough evidence to support a statement made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier this week that "official agencies" in Pakistan were involved in the November attack in which 10 gunmen killed 179 people.
Mukherjee declined to comment on what India's options were, but replying to a question on whether India was considering strikes comparable to those of Israel on Gaza, he said the two issues could not be compared.
Categorically rejecting option of India taking any "Israel-type" action Mukherjee said: "I do not agree to that. Because this is totally wrong. The situation is not at all comparable."
"I have not occupied in Pakistan's land, which Israel has done, so how is the situation comparable?" he said during the TV interview. Experts said India would keep up diplomatic pressure on Pakistan and the international community to take action.
"We have adequate information and circumstantial evidence," Mukherjee told The Statesman newspaper. He said the "magnitude, ferocity and depth" of the attack showed it was well planed. "And sometimes it becomes difficult to believe that such a preparation is going on in a piece of land where there is a government, a civilian government, and it is fully unaware of it," the foreign minister added.
India has become increasingly frustrated at what it sees as Pakistan's failure to take strong action against those it blames for the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan has rejected the Indian allegations.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani yesterday reiterated an offer that Pakistan would cooperate in investigations but said its forces were ready to defend the country. "As far as Pakistan is concerned, we are prepared for full cooperation with them, including intelligence cooperation," he told reporters in the southern city of Karachi.
"But we don't want them to demoralize or ridicule Pakistan through media or diplomacy ... Pakistan is strong. Its defense is strong. We have a highly professional army and there is no need to (feel) threatened."
Islamabad said on Friday it had sent New Delhi a response to a dossier of evidence from the Mumbai attacks, but India's Foreign Ministry denied receiving any reply. Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told reporters: "We will react to the reply when we receive it. We have not yet received it. When it reaches us we will comment."
Declining to comment on government in Pakistan, Mukherjee said: "We shall have to deal only with government of the day. Whether the government of the day wields real power or not it is not for me to look into that."
Meanwhile, former President Pervez Musharraf said that India should not talk of "surgical strikes" on Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attack, as forces were ready to "retaliate to any aggression."
"India should not talk rubbish like surgical strikes. Our forces are not sitting idle and have full capacity to retaliate to any level of aggression," the former military dictator told reporters before leaving for the US where he is scheduled to deliver lectures at various institutes.
"Why they (Indians) are again and again talking of surgical strikes? Why can't Pakistan say the same," asked Musharraf, considered the architect of the Kargil conflict with India in 1999.
— With input from Azhar Masood
