Islamabad, December 7
Pakistan today dismissed reports that it had agreed to a 48-hour deadline set by India and the US to take action against the LeT, as international pressure mounted on Islamabad to act against elements linked to the Mumbai attack.
“We do not have to respond to each and every provocative statement or comment in the media,” presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar told PTI when asked about the report in the Washington Post that Pakistan had agreed to a 48-hour deadline imposed by the US and India to act against the LeT and to arrest at least three Pakistanis who Indian authorities say are linked to the attacks.
Adding to Islamabad's discomfiture was another report in British newspaper The Observer which said the lone surviving gunman arrested during the terror attacks came from Okara district of Punjab in Pakistan. Islamabad has denied that the arrested terrorist is its national.
The daily claimed to have obtained electoral lists for Faridkot showing 478 registered voters including that of Mohammad Amir, married to Noor Elahi.
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, the terrorist who is being interrogated by the Mumbai police, has stated that he hails
from Faridkot and is the son of Amir and Noor. Their village is believed to be an active recruiting ground for the banned Lashkar-e-Toiba.
The daily quoted an unidentified villager as saying that Ajmal has not lived in Faridkot for about four years but would see his family once a year and frequently talked about “freeing Kashmir from Indian rule.
The Washington Post quoted an unnamed Pakistani official as saying that India had asked Pakistan to arrest and hand over LeT commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhwi and former Inter-Services Intelligence agency chief Lt Gen (retired) Hamid Gul in connection with the probe into the attacks that killed 183 people. Gul rubbished the report.
Faced with increasing international pressure to act against the LeT and domestic compulsions, Pakistan’s civil and military leadership asked India to provide “solid evidence” before levelling “baseless allegations” against it.
This was decided during two meetings yesterday that were chaired by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and attended by senior ministers, military officials and opposition leaders. The meetings reviewed the security situation on Pakistan’s eastern and western borders and the fallout of the Mumbai attacks.
The first meeting, at which opposition leaders were not present, decided to confront “negative propaganda by the Indian media” by explaining Pakistan’s position to the world, the pro-establishment The News daily reported.
— PTI
