India on Monday said the pressure put on Pakistan by world leaders over last month’s attacks on Mumbai was inadequate and handed over a letter allegedly written by a surviving gunman to Islamabad.
Foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said Pakistan’s acting High Commissioner Afrasiab Mehdi Hashmi was summoned to the ministry and given the letter purportedly written by Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman.
“In his letter to the Pakistan High Commission, Iman has stated he and the [nine] terrorists killed in the attack were from Pakistan and he has sought a meeting with the Pakistan high commission,” Prakash said.
A ministry official who did not want to be named said a photocopy of Iman’s original letter had been handed over, adding the gunmen has sought legal aid.
“The letter urges Pakistan to provide him such assistance,” he said. Indian lawyers have refused to represent Iman in court.
In Islamabad, the foreign ministry confirmed that the letter had been forwarded to Pakistan’s high commission in New Delhi. It said the suspect claimed in the letter to be a Pakistani, and had asked for legal assistance as well as a meeting with Pakistani officials in India.
“The contents of the letter are being examined,” it said in a brief statement.
Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee meanwhile demanded more results from US-led efforts to force Pakistan to co-operate with the probe into the attacks, which India blames on Pakistan-based guerrillas.
“There has been some effort so far by the international community but this is not enough,” Mukherjee told a meeting of India’s ambassadors called to New Delhi to discuss the Nov. 26 carnage.
Asked whether a military response to the attacks was being considered, he said India would “explore all options” to push Pakistan on its promise to crack down on cross-border terrorism.
Mukherjee said India had “so far acted with utmost restraint” after gunmen killed 163 people in Mumbai — but he added that it could not afford to stand back and rely on others to tackle nuclear rival Pakistan.
“While we continue to persuade the international community and Pakistan, we are also clear that ultimately it is we who have to deal with this problem,” he said.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani meanwhile said his country did not want war with India.
“If war is imposed upon us, the whole nation would be united and the armed forces are fully capable of safeguarding and defending the territorial integrity of the country,” Gilani told Pakistani Ambassador to India Shahid Malik.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have all visited the region since the Mumbai attacks in a bid to calm tensions between the nuclear-armed adversaries.
“We expect Pakistan to do whatever it has committed,” Mukherjee said.
He said Pakistan’s response to the attacks demonstrated its “tendency to resort to a policy of denial.”
Pakistan refuses to hand over suspects in the Mumbai strikes and rejects evidence that the gunmen were from Pakistan.
Delhi blames the carnage on Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistan-based militant group fighting in Indian-held Kashmir.
Under pressure from the UN, Pakistan banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity, which is accused of being a front for LET.
The Lashkar has already been banned by Pakistan, but India accuses Islamabad of not cracking down on the group.
An elite commando force meanwhile unveiled plans on Monday to deploy troops in the four key cities of Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai as a precaution against possible future strikes.
The Delhi-based commando team was instrumental in ending the 60-hour siege in Mumbai.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain and nearly came to a fourth in 2001 after an attack on the Indian parliament blamed on cross-border militants.
India put on hold a 2004 peace process with Pakistan following the Mumbai atrocity.
BEIJING FORUM: ‘So-called freedom of navigation advocated by certain countries outside the region challenges the norms of international relations,’ the minister said Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) yesterday denounced “hegemonic logic and acts of bullying” during remarks at a Beijing forum that were full of thinly veiled references to the US. Organizers said that about 1,800 representatives from 100 countries, including political, military and academic leaders, were in Beijing for the Xiangshan Forum. The three-day event comes as China presents itself as a mediator of fraught global issues including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Addressing attendees at the opening ceremony, Dong warned of “new threats and challenges” now facing world peace. “While the themes of the times — peace and development —
Venezuela on Saturday organized a day of military training for civilians in response to the US deployment in the Caribbean, and amid new threats from US President Donald Trump. About a month ago, Washington deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 jets sent to Puerto Rico in what it calls an anti-drug and anti-terrorism operation. Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez has accused Washington of waging “undeclared war” in the Caribbean, after US strikes killed over a dozen alleged drug traffickers off his country’s coast. Caracas also accused the US of seeking regime change, and
BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS: A prosecutor said they considered the risk of Hak-ja Han tampering with evidence to be very high, which led them to seek the warrant South Korean prosecutors yesterday requested an arrest warrant for the leader of the Unification Church, Hak-ja Han, on allegations of bribery linked to the country’s former first lady and incitement to destroy evidence. The move came a day after the 82-year-old was questioned over her alleged role in bribing former first lady Kim Keon-hee and a lawmaker. Founded in 1954 by her late husband, Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Church has long been the subject of controversy and criticism, with its teachings centered on Moon’s role as the “second coming” and its mass weddings. Followers are derisively referred to as “Moonies.” However, the church’s
‘MURDER’: The US has not provided proof that boats it has struck were trafficking drugs, and a Venezuelan official said it was a crime against humanity that must be investigated Venezuela on Friday accused the US of waging an “undeclared war” in the Caribbean and called for a UN probe of US strikes that have killed more than a dozen alleged drug traffickers on boats over the past few weeks. Washington has deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35s sent to Puerto Rico in what it calls an anti-drug operation. “It is an undeclared war, and you can already see how people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, have been executed in the Caribbean Sea. Executed without the right to a defense,” Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir