New Delhi: India on Thursday lowered the pressure on Pakistan and said Islamabad’s admission that "a part of the conspiracy" of the Mumbai terrorist attacks was a ‘positive development’.
The Ministry of External Affairs said India would study the action initiated by Pakistan, as it is keen to ensure that perpetrators of the terrorist attack are brought to justice.
"In their official response, Pakistan authorities have admitted that elements in Pakistan were involved in the terrorist attacks on Mumbai," the Ministry said in a statement.
"They (Pakistan) are still in the process of investigating the attacks and have taken certain actions including the arrest of some of those who were involved and filing a First Information Report," it said.
"This is a positive development," the statement said.
The statement was issued soon after Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad Satyabrata Pal was "informed officially" by Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir of Pakistan's response to the dossier of evidence that India had given to Pakistan on January 5 linking the Mumbai attacks to perpetrators in Pakistan.
Home Minister P Chidambaram, too, called Pakistan's admission a positive development.
"My initial response is that it is a positive development. “We are happy (that) initial response is positive," he said. The dossier that India gave to Pakistan on January 5 was "exceptionally, tightly argued document, very cogently argued document" which "nobody could have ignored" there.
Asked if the Inter-Services Intelligence or other Pakistani official agencies were involved in the attacks, Chidambaram said: "it is not fair to get into such debate at this stage.
“We received the report, it has a number of questions. I will study overnight, we will study in different departments." Pakistan’s demands
Ten weeks after the terror attacks in Mumbai that shook the world and sent India-Pakistan relations in deep freeze, Islamabad finally owned up that "a part of the conspiracy" was hatched in the country.
Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik said at a crowded news conference that the terrorists, who slaughtered some 170 people in Mumbai in November and who India says were Pakistanis, were "non-state actors" -- meaning the Pakistani establishment had nothing to do with the massacre that has been roundly condemned around the world.
"This is an individual act, act of individuals or non-state actors. Their purpose is to create terror for their own motives. These motives need to be determined. Both India and Pakistan need to work it out," he said. "A part of the conspiracy has been done in Pakistan," the minister admitted, "but a major part was shaped in India."
Malik said Pakistan would cooperate with India in probing the attacks, but wanted help from New Delhi. Pakistan wants India to reply to what according to it are 30 unanswered questions in the dossier India has given it.
It wants the DNA of Ajmal Kasab, the sole terrorist to be captured alive in the Mumbai attacks. It wants more information on the Mumbai terrorists and an investigation into their " local links".
(With inputs from PTI and IANS.)
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