Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has promised full cooperation in the investigating going on in Mumbai attacks. Pakistan links has been pointed out by Indian government, after the terrorist attacks at several places in Mumbai.
According to the report buzzing from Pakistan, President Zardari has assured India, that he would look into the matter, if there is any role by his countrymen in last week’s terrorist attack in Mumbai.
But the most important question is can India trust Zardari government? If we see the other side of the picture, Pakistan’s response to the attacks so far has been somewhat inconsistent.
Even it gave no formal reply yesterday to India’s request to and extradite 20 men accused of attacks stretching back to the 1990s.
After the attacks, Zardari offered to send the ISI’s chief, Lieutenant GeneralAhmed Shujaa Pasha, to meet Indian officials, but soon after government backed down and said another official may be sent later.
Indian officials clearly see Pakistan’s hand in the mayhem. Even the terrorist who survived last week’s attacks, plus data from a satellite phone and a navigation device, show they were organized by the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The same outfit was involved in the Parliament attacks in the year of 2002, and later it was proved too. At that time NDA government came with the same demand, handing over 20 wanted terrorists including Daood Ibrahim, but Pakistan administration paid no attention.
This time US administration backed India, but there’s no serious effort so far. Still US has denied to accept Pakistan links to the Mumbai attacks.
It’s now clear, an investigation of Lashkar may lead to the Pakistan army’s main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, because the ISI gave money and direction to the Islamist group as it conducted attacks in India in the 1990s.
Under pressure from the U.S. after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pakistan’s then-military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, banned Lashkar and other Pakistani organizations for having links to al-Qaeda, the Afghanistan-based group behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
But after being banned, Lashkar continued to operate, changing its name and repainting the signboards on its offices around the country.
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