India not likely to share hard evidence on train blasts
By Jawed Naqvi
NEW DELHI, March 4: An Indian delegation will leave for Islamabad on Monday for the first meeting of the Joint Anti-terror Mechanism amid reports here that New Delhi was not likely to share any hard evidence with Islamabad on the train blasts in Mumbai and Panipat.
The Indian delegation for the two days of maiden talks from Tuesday is being led by K. C. Singh, additional secretary at the foreign ministry.
The Times of India reported at the weekend that Delhi had decided not to share with Pakistan any “hard evidence” about these terror attacks.
Although New Delhi would provide Islamabad “enough details” to pinpoint the role of alleged Pakistan-backed terrorist outfits in the blasts on Mumbai suburban trains and last month’s Delhi-Attari Express, the report said India was afraid that “hard evidence” in the hands of rival intelligence agencies could be misused or tampered with.
“There is always a chance of tampering with the technical evidence (intercepts) which point fingers at Pakistan-based terror outfits. Concrete details comprising phone numbers and web server data can be changed any time to suit the perpetrators’ claim,” the Times quoted an unnamed senior official as saying. It said the official had been part of a high-level team working to finalise the agenda for the forthcoming meet.
The anti-terror mechanism was formed after an agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Gen Pervez Musharraf during their meeting in Havana last September. The two leaders had met in the Cuban capital after the July serial blasts ripped through suburban trains in Mumbai.
The Times quoted its sources as saying that since the Mumbai police had already filed the charge-sheet in the commuter train blasts case, India would share a bit more information with Pakistan “indicating involvement of Pakistani citizens in planting the bombs in the suburban trains.”
