Author: Shishir Gupta, New Delhi
Publication: Indian Express
Dated: December 5, 2008
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/new-delhi-says-isi-pak-army-helped-lashkar-strike/394450/
With US help, India is said to have collected
evidence that points to the role of the Pakistani ISI in the Mumbai Terror
attacks. Pressure is now being mounted on Islamabad to ban the Muridke-based
Jamat-ud-Dawa, which fronts for the banned Lashkar-e-Toiba, and move against
its leader Hafiz Saeed.
Sources said New Delhi believes the Mumbai
attack was an operation of the Pakistani Army, its intelligence agency and
Lashkar cadres and that the civilian Government there was not kept in the
loop. India has asked Pakistan to act against the perpetrators but has not
submitted any list of Indian fugitives to Islamabad after the attack. Sources
said New Delhi was demanding Islamabad initiate action not only against the
Lashkar but also those within the ISI who actively conspired in the Mumbai
attacks.
After pooling intelligence with the US, New
Delhi has collected names of trainers and the controller of the Lashkar terrorists,
even details of the place where they were trained. Apparently some of the
intercepts, mostly voice over Internet protocol, used communication pathways
often used by the ISI.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, have urged
the Pakistani government to act against the terrorists and their sponsors.
While New Delhi is convinced that the Mumbai strikes were planned to the last
detail, it is still weighing a response to the attacks. The government is
not very sure what effect will another UN resolution against terrorism or
another international call will have on what it calls a "rather weak"
Pakistani government to uproot the terror network there.
The other problem is that precipitating matters
would give the Pakistan army an upper hand, even reverse the negative perception
about it among ordinary Pakistanis. The Pakistan army could use this as an
excuse to move troops from the troubled north-west to the borders with India,
complicating matters for the US-led war on terror in Afghanistan. Sources
said the Pakistan army has shown it has a different agenda from the government
there. While the civilian government was in favour of a meeting between ISI
chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha and RAW chief Ashok Chaturvedi, it was rejected by
the Pakistani military.