Tom Wright | Wall Street Journal
Pakistan is investigating the possible involvement of two ex-army officers and four other militants in the 2008 attacks on Mumbai based on new information provided to it by India, according to a senior Pakistani government official. But it denies India’s assertions that Pakistan’s military spy agency orchestrated the strike.
Those claims of involvement in the Mumbai attacks by Pakistani intelligence were made by a senior Indian government official last week on the eve of a much-heralded peace summit between the two nations’ foreign ministers. Speaking to a local newspaper, Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said New Delhi’s questioning of David Headley, a Pakistani-American citizen involved in the Mumbai attacks, had provided evidence that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence military spy agency orchestrated the killings.
His claims sparked a round of mutual recriminations that cast a pall over efforts to reduce tensions between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors.
India’s National Security Advisor, Shivshankar Menon, reiterated India’s concerns Tuesday that links between Pakistan’s “establishment”—a term for its powerful military and spy agencies rather than the civilian government—and Islamist terrorists were strengthening.
“That nexus makes it a harder phenomenon for us to deal with,” Mr. Menon said in a speech to a terrorism conference in New Delhi. He stopped short of saying the Pakistani state was involved in the attacks on Mumbai, during which 10 Pakistani gunmen left more than 160 people dead in a three-day killing spree in India’s financial capital.
India suspended peace talks with Pakistan after those attacks but restarted them in February this year. It has argued Pakistan must bring the perpetrators to justice until talks move on to a wider range of issues, including the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
Pakistan has so far charged seven people, including members of Pakistan militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, for their involvement but trials have yet to begin, angering Indian authorities.
The senior Pakistan official said India’s Home Minister P. Chidambaram had informed Pakistan’s government during a meeting in Islamabad last month of the possible involvement of six further people, comprising the two former army officers and four “lower officials” of Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The official said Pakistan is conducting its own investigation based on the evidence. The names came from India’s interrogation in early June of Mr. Headley, who has admitted to staking out targets for the Mumbai attacks and is in U.S. custody, the official said.
The evidence, although showing possible links of former Pakistan military personnel to the Mumbai attacks, does not add up to India’s claims of Pakistan state involvement, the official said.
An Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman declined to comment. Attempts to reach the Indian Home Ministry were not successful. A spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, Abdul Basit, said India’s claims of Pakistan state involvement in the Mumbai attacks were “baseless accusations.” He declined to comment on any ongoing investigations.
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, on an official visit to Islamabad, said Monday the U.S. had shared “quite a revealing set of facts” from its interrogation of Mr. Headley with Pakistan. Ms. Clinton didn’t elaborate.
India’s claims of involvement by Pakistani intelligence in the Mumbai attacks torpedoed last week’s peace talks before they started. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi denied the link Thursday as he met with his Indian counterpart, S.M. Krishna, and blamed India for sabotaging the talks. They were the first ministerial-level discussions since the peace process were suspended in 2008.
Mr. Qureshi went on to say the team led by Mr. Krishna had been ill-prepared for the meeting, causing a furor in India.
Senior Indian officials over the weekend said New Delhi stands by Mr. Pillai’s charges of Pakistan state involvement in the attacks, but haven’t elaborated.
Indian officials have also stated publicly it was Mr. Qureshi’s insistence that talks also encompass Kashmir and other issues that led to the breakdown in talks. New Delhi says it won’t move on to other issues until Pakistan cracks down on militants involved in attacking India.
