India pressures Pakistan to act on terrorism
Becoming more sure that militants based in Pakistan carried out the Mumbai attacks, India calls on its neighbor and rival to hand over 20 terrorism suspects and cooperate fully in the investigation.
Reporting from Mumbai, India, and Islamabad, Pakistan -- India called in a Pakistani envoy Monday and demanded that its neighbor and longtime rival take swift action after deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai that shook the nation, even as widening domestic fallout forced another top official to resign.
Increasingly confident that evidence in attacks that killed at least 170 people points to the involvement of Pakistan-based groups, India also called on Pakistan to hand over 20 terrorism suspects reportedly based there, amplifying a demand made in 2002.
At the top of the list were Dawood Ibrahim, an underworld figure from Mumbai with links to militant organizations, and Maulana Masood Azhar, leader of the extremist group Jaish-e-Muhammad.
Indian officials told Pakistan in a written diplomatic note that hopes for a "qualitatively new relationship" between the countries depended on cooperation in the investigation of the Mumbai attacks, which targeted luxury hotels and other landmarks in India's financial capital.
"In other words, all bets would be off if Pakistan failed to provide satisfaction," the Times of India newspaper said today.
Underscoring the gravity with which Washington views the increase in regional tension, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to arrive in India on Wednesday after a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Brussels.
Rice told reporters in London that U.S.-India relations have had a "banner year," including the recent signing of a landmark nuclear cooperation deal.
She said that Pakistan, an important ally in the U.S. fight against Islamic extremism, had nothing to fear from warmer ties between India and the United States.
However, Pakistan has been under U.S. pressure to cooperate with the Mumbai investigation, as it has pledged to do. Rice said the Bush administration expected "complete, absolute, total transparency" from Pakistani authorities.
"This is a time when everyone in the civilized world needs to unite," Rice said. "Ultimately the terrorists have to be stopped."
Pakistan's civilian government, in office less than a year, has been trying to rally the country's fractious political parties behind it. Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani was to convene a meeting today to try to achieve consensus on policy in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.
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