WASHINGTON, July 19: The Indian lobby on Capitol Hill launched a campaign on Wednesday to prevent the United States administration from selling F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.

“The $ 5.1 billion cutting edge arms package the administration is lining up will not only be useless in the war on terrorism or to hunt Osama bin Laden, but it will also come back to haunt both India and the US,” said a statement issued by the US-India Political Action Committee, the Indian caucus on the hill.

It said the Indian government had named “a Pakistani national with links to Al Qaeda as the primary suspect” in last week’s Mumbai blasts, while the US “Congress is inching closer to securing a weapons deal to Pakistan.”

On Thursday, the House International Relations Committee is holding a hearing on the deal.

The Indian caucus has organised a press conference to urge the Bush administration to stop the deal and has lined up several Republican and Democrat lawmakers to address it.

Earlier, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher defended the US offer to sell F-16s to Pakistan.