India to share evidence with Pakistan: Mumbai blasts
By Jawed Naqvi
NEW DELHI, Oct 1: Former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan Shiv Shankar Menon took over as foreign secretary on Sunday and set the agenda to resolve terrorism issues with Islamabad, to begin with by sharing evidence on the Mumbai blasts with it.
Mr Menon who met reporters on his first day at the new job, fielded a range of questions, from the future of the Indo-US nuclear deal to the Mumbai police commissioner’s charge that the Inter-Services Intelligence was responsible for the train blasts there on July 11. Nearly 200 commuters were killed and 800 wounded in the blasts.
“This is something that we will certainly take up with the government of Pakistan and we will judge them not by immediate reactions or verbal statements, by what they actually do about terrorism,” said Mr Menon who is due to meet his Pakistani counterpart here next month.
The meeting is expected to work out the contours of the joint anti-terrorism mechanism that has become the subject of media speculation and widespread criticism by the intelligence establishment and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.
Mumbai Police Commissioner A. N. Roy said on Saturday that investigations had proved the serial blasts were planned by the ISI and carried out by Laskar-i-Toiba.
Mr Menon had played a key role in preparing President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to agree on the controversial joint mechanism.
“It seems to me logical that the mechanism has to deal with this kind of evidence,” Mr Menon said, adds Reuters.
Pakistan and Lashkar have both rejected the Indian accusations and Pakistani foreign ministry spokeswoman has called them baseless and irresponsible.
Minister of State for Information Tariq Azim Khan said Islamabad would investigate the allegations if New Delhi shared its evidence.
Mr Roy said 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 15-20kg of RDX explosives to make the bombs in Mumbai, and funds to stage the attack also came from Pakistan via a Lashkar operative in Saudi Arabia, Mr Roy said.
