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Tuesday, Jan 06, 2009
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Menon: Pakistan can extradite Mumbai terror attack masterminds

Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI: Maintaining that extradition of terror suspects is allowed under several international conventions, New Delhi has called upon Islamabad to act swiftly because all material thrown up by the investigations into the November 26 Mumbai attacks points to Pakistan.

“Our understanding of the law is quite clear. There are several conventions on terrorism and under them Pakistan is obliged to extradite criminals. If not, it amounts to granting them immunity once they are on Pakistani soil,” Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told journalists here on Monday.

Mr. Menon expressed India’s weariness with the existing bilateral mechanisms with Pakistan to counter terrorism and suggested that there was no point in adding or modifying the structures to ensure meaningful cooperation. “So far as the history of attacks is concerned, they [bilateral mechanisms] have not succeeded. It is now incumbent on us to do what we can. We are no longer interested in words, but in actual action. The answer is not to scrap this or tinker with that or form this.”

“The world and Islamabad must ensure that such attacks are not repeated and the perpetrators are tried for the violence. Investigations are ongoing but we feel we are at the point where it is clear that the crime was committed in India but the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan. Hence our request to Pakistan is to fulfil their commitment to us. These types of crimes are a threat to international community. It is time the world acted to eliminate this threat.” Pointing out that the material that emerged from the probe led to elements in Pakistan, Mr. Menon wanted Islamabad to look at it and share its end of investigations with New Delhi. “All we have seen are denials,” he said.

Referring to the 2001 Parliament House attack, Mr. Menon noted that three months after the incident the Lashkar-e-Taiba was back in business. “What we have seen does not impress us.”

“Pakistan had said it was conducting its own investigations. Now we have shared some of the results. We hope Pakistan will follow it up and help us bring the perpetrators to justice. We clearly want from Pakistan all information relating to the crime. How was the training, planning, organising and planning done? We expect legal assistance to extradition. We shared evidence after the Kabul Embassy attack and also in several other cases. But we are hoping that the previous pattern is not repeated,” Mr. Menon observed.

Asked why India was submitting the material after a month, Mr. Menon said: “We needed to be sure. That is normal. We have now shared and expect Pakistan would do the same in return.”

Asked whether some former members of the Inter-Services Intelligence were involved, he indicated that after seeing the nature of the attack it was “hard to believe” the involvement of only LeT militants.

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