NEW DELHI, Oct 4: Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has said that his Havana agreement with President Gen Pervez Musharraf offered a chance to both countries to test a potentially effective anti-terror mechanism and the Mumbai blasts case would make a good beginning.
“Pakistan will have to walk the talk,” Dr Singh was quoted by Indian newspapers on Wednesday as saying while returning from South Africa.
“We have set up this mechanism. How else can we ask for information except through a mechanism like this?” Dr Singh said in response to a question on the Mumbai trains blasts in July.
“We have evidence that we will offer Pakistan, we will discuss with Pakistan on the basis of that evidence. We will test the waters …,” he said.
Apparently shrugging off criticism of the Havana agreement by India’s rightwing opposition groups, Dr Singh said that Pakistan had condemned the blasts.
“In our joint statement, there is an explicit condemnation of the Mumbai blasts, following that there is also mention of cooperation that our two countries will undertake to control this menace. We will share that information with Pakistan and ascertain how sincere they are in carrying forward the commitment that I and President Musharraf have underlined in our joint statement,” he said.
Dr Singh cautioned against prejudging the anti-terror mechanism. “The mechanism is yet to take off, we have to test it, and we will test it.”
On the nuclear deal with the United States, he said there was always a built-in ‘uncertainty’ insofar as ‘we have no control over the legislative process in the United States.”
The Mumbai police said on Saturday that they had found evidence linking the July 11 serial bombings in Mumbai commuter trains to the Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammad, and accused the ISI of involvement in the attacks, which left nearly 200 rush-hour commuters dead and several hundreds injured.
