NEW DELHI: India yesterday handed over to Pakistan answers to 30 questions they had posed in connection with Mumbai’s “horrific terror attacks” and underlined that these replies provided “enough material” for Islamabad to take the investigation forward and punish the guilty. Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon met Pakistan’s High Commissioner Shahid Malik and formally handed over India’s replies to Pakistan’s questions over the Mumbai attacks, official sources said.
India said now that it has provided more details to India it was time for Islamabad to take swift action against the alleged plotters.
The Indian government in January sent Pakistan a dossier that it said “unmistakably” points to elements in Pakistan being behind the November attack on the city by a group of gunmen.
Pakistan replied in February, admitting for the first time that the strikes were partly planned on its soil, but also asking 30 specific questions on the evidence.
“We have put together the answers to the 30 questions submitted by Pakistan. It’s a very comprehensive document, it answers every question,” Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told reporters. “We expect Pakistan to take the investigation forward quickly, apprehend all the culprits and hand them over to India for prosecution and punishment or prosecute and punish them in Pakistan,” he said. “Anyone who’s serious about investigating the origins of the Mumbai attacks will find there’s enough material to take the investigation forward,” Chidambaram said.
According to Indian investigators, the banned Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) trained and equipped the 10 militants and financed and directed the operation, even when the attackers were on the ground.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also alleged the attacks had the support of some “official agencies,” accusing Pakistan of using terrorism as an “instrument of state policy.” Both LeT and Pakistan have denied any involvement in the attacks.
The Nov. 26-29 siege left 165 people dead and derailed a five-year peace process between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals.
One of the gunmen, a Pakistani national, was captured alive and has already been charged by a Mumbai court with murder, attempted murder and “waging war against India.” Indian officials have said that many of Pakistan’s requests related to “technical and forensic evidence” from the gunmen, such as DNA samples.
Pakistan had also reportedly asked for mobile phone transcripts and voice recordings of the gunmen’s associates, to establish “connectivity and communication of the terrorists with militants based abroad.”
The answers, according to the sources, include details of fingerprints of gunmen, their intercepted phone conversations with their handlers and the DNA of lone surviving terrorist Ajmal Qasab and nine other terrorists killed by Indian security forces in November last year.
