India hands over dossier on Mumbai attacks to Pak Foreign Secy

Rezaul H Laskar
Islamabad, Jan 5 (PTI) India Monday handed over a dossier
on its probe into the Mumbai terror attacks to Pakistan, which
sought cooperation between the two countries in the
investigations to gather "legally scrutable" evidence.

India's High Commissioner to Pakistan Satyabrata Pal
called on Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir in the
Foreign Office here and handed over "an information dossier on
the status of investigations thus far by India into the Mumbai
terrorist attacks", said a statement issued by the Foreign
Office.

Bashir told Pal that Pakistan was "carrying out its own
investigations and was determined to uncover the full facts
pertaining to the Mumbai terrorist attacks".

He "underscored that Pakistan and India must cooperate in
the investigations with a view to gathering evidence that was
legally scrutable".

The same information was shared by Indian Foreign
Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon with Pakistan's High Commissioner
Shahid Malik in New Delhi earlier in the day. Bashir said the
Pakistan government will "evaluate the information provided by
India so far".

The Foreign Office statement said the Indian government
had "expressed the hope that it will receive cooperation of
the government of Pakistan in carrying out further
investigations".

Bashir also said it was Pakistan's desire to deal
effectively with terrorism, which was a "regional phenomenon
and required close cooperation".

Bashir reiterated Pakistan's proposals for a joint
investigation into the Mumbai attacks and for sending a
high-level delegation to India to discuss the sharing of
information.

Pakistan also wanted to constitute a joint commission
headed by the National Security Advisers of the two countries,
he said.

Earlier, Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq had said
Pakistan is examining "information" on the Mumbai attacks
handed over by India.

Pakistan's top leadership also told visiting US Assistant
Secretary of State Richard Boucher that the government is
examining the evidence and a formal response would be framed
shortly.

Boucher's arrival in Islamabad Monday morning coincided
with the handing over of evidence by India on the terrorist
incident in its financial hub that killed over 180 people.

Though there was no official word on Boucher's meetings
with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gilani and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, official
sources were quoted by TV channels as saying that the
Pakistani leaders had informed the US diplomat that
Islamabad's formal response to the information provided
by New Delhi would be framed shortly. PTI