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December 31, 2008	Wednesday	Muharram 02,1430

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NEW DELHI, Dec 30: National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani has said that India and Pakistan should join hands to remove the menace of terrorism from the region and said Pakistan was on partial, though not high alert, in response to certain actions across its eastern borders.

In an interview to Delhi-based CNN-IBN news channel, he acknowledged that some or all of the gunmen involved in the terror attacks on Mumbai could be Pakistanis but said Islamabad had not received any information from India to confirm the claim.

Mr Durrani said he had seen the letter purportedly written by the surviving alleged attacker Ajmal Kasab. “I have seen that letter. We have been provided some intelligence information and based on these we are working out. We are trying to investigate on our own. We are looking at what you have given us and trying to connect the dots but…it takes time. And to convict somebody if there is proper proof in the court of law you need more than this.”

He refuted India’s charge that Pakistan was living in denial: “I don’t think there is denial. There is nothing wrong and everything is right is not true. We have this problem between our two countries, there could be a possible connection and we are looking at that. There could be something. I’ll not say more than that because we don’t have to say this, but we don’t have proof.”

When asked if he would admit that Mr Kasab and some or all of the 10 attackers of Mumbai could be Pakistanis, Mr Durrani said: “Could be… that’s all I will say as of now, while the investigations are still being completed.”

Mr Durrani was told that Pakistan and not India had moved troops to the border. He shot back: “I think what happens is that in situations like this truth becomes the casualty. The bottom line is Pakistan does not want confrontation with India because it is neither in the interest of India nor in the interest of Pakistan. We in Pakistan want to cooperate with India to get rid of the region of terrorist agenda and I think it is mandatory that we don’t play into the hands of the bad guys.”

Mr Durrani denied that Pakistan had massed troops on the Indian border. “I would like to say that we are not mobilised and we are not on a high alert. Yes some elements of our military would be on high alert because the worry is that probably there has been limited amount of mobilisation from India. This is our assessment and to protect ourselves there was a level of alert. It was a reaction more than an action.”

Mr Durrani asked India to trust Pakistan in the hunt for terrorists. “Let’s not fool ourselves. Sometimes what distrust does to you is that you put two and two together and instead of making four, you make 22. Unfortunately that is what is happening now. Take Masood Azhar for example now. We genuinely want to take hold of him but he has vanished. We don’t know where he is. What’s wrong in that? I mean why don’t you trust us over that? Similarly there are other things. You know a lot of things are said in the Indian media, particularly your kind of media, and so people react here and similarly there is something said here and people react there.”