Pak claims India cooked up story about Kasab

Islamabad, Dec 31 (PTI) Pakistan Wednesday claimed that
India had cooked up a story about Ajmal Amir Iman 'Kasab', the
lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attacks, being a
Pakistani and had "even failed in that too."

Questioning the authenticity of the letter written by
Kasab to seek legal aid from Pakistan government, Interior
Secretary Syed Kamal Shah said "they (Indians) have simply
tried to make up a story and have even failed in that too."

The language and contents of Kasab's letter did not
"match those of a real Pakistani," he claimed while talking to
reporters during a visit to the headquarters of the National
Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), Pakistan's
national database, yesterday.

Shah repeated Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik's
claim that no records of Kasab had been found in the NADRA
database.

However, the database covers only 60 million of
Pakistan's total population of over 160 million.

Shah also said the Indian authorities had not yet shared
evidence on the Mumbai attacks with Pakistan.

"Why did the Indians not share the identity of the others
accused in the attacks? They are talking just about Ajmal
Kasab, who was not even arrested from the crime scene," he
claimed.

He also said that one of the mobile phone SIMs allegedly
recovered from Kasab was issued from Austria.

Kasab's father recently admitted in an interview to the
Dawn newspaper that the gunman whose picture was beamed around
the world by the media was his son.

Residents of Kasab's village of Faridkot in Punjab
province too have told the Pakistani media that he belonged to
the area. They said he had told his mother during his last
visit home that he was going away for 'jehad'. PTI