Punish Pulwama, Mumbai masterminds: India to Pak
NEW DELHI : India on Thursday demanded Pakistan should prosecute the perpetrators of the 2019 Pulwama terror attack and 2008 Mumbai carnage, saying the main accused in last year’s suicide bombing – Jaish-e-mohammed (JEM) chief Masood Azhar – continues to be sheltered by Islamabad.
New Delhi also called on Islamabad to act against Un-designated terrorists such as Dawood Ibrahim, saying Pakistan’s assertion that its actions to enforce the global body’s sanctions doesn’t mean it admits to the presence of such individuals on its territory reflects its “insincerity” in tracking down global terrorists operating from Pakistani soil.
India’s response to Pakistan’s rejection of the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) charge sheet in the Pulwama terror attack was outlined during a weekly news briefing by external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava, who said Islamabad was evading its responsibility even after New Delhi had shared “enough evidence” on the suicide bombing.
The charge sheet filed by NIA in a court in Jammu on Tuesday named Masood Azhar, his two brothers Abdul Rauf Asghar Alvi and Ammar Alvi, his nephew Mohammad Umar Farooq and 15 others who carried out the bombing at Pakistan’s behest. The attack killed 40 Indian troopers and triggered a brief standoff between the two countries.
Pakistan rejected the charge sheet on Wednesday, contending it contained fabrications to further the Indian government’s “anti-pakistan rhetoric and its narrow domestic political interests”. It also said the Indian side had failed to respond to two requests for further information on the terror attack.
Responding to a question on whether India will share further information with Pakistan on the attack, Srivastava said: “Jaish-emohammed had claimed the responsibility of the Pulwama attack. The organisation and its leadership are in Pakistan. It is regrettable that Masood Azhar, the first accused in the charge sheet continues to find shelter in Pakistan.” He added, “Enough evidence has been shared with Pakistan but it continues to evade responsibility.”
The charge sheet, Srivastava said, was filed after an investigation lasting a year-and-a-half since the attack on February 14 last year. “It has been filed to address the act of terrorism and to bring perpetrators of such a heinous crime to justice. Our aim is not to simply issue statements or notifications,” he said.
Srivastava also pointed out that Pakistan was yet to take “any credible action” against perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008, which claimed 166 lives, including 25 foreign nationals.
The Mumbai attacks were carried out by a 10-member team of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-taiba (LET). Pakistani security agencies arrested seven men, including LET operations commander Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, in the weeks after the attack but their trail has made little headway even after scores of hearings. Lakhvi was released on bail in 2015 and his current whereabouts are unknown.
Pakistan also recently issued two statutory regulatory orders (SROS) to enforce UN Security Council sanctions on hundreds of terrorist individuals and entities, including Masood Azhar, LET founder Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim ahead of an expected assessment of its counter-terror financing actions by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). One of the orders listed three addresses in Karachi for Dawood, though Pakistan has long denied the his presence in the country.