Hot pursuit on India's agenda: Omar

DUBAI, OCT. 7. The Minister of State for External Affairs, Mr. Omar Abdullah, has said the hot pursuit of terrorists is very much on the agenda of the Central Government to tackle militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. He also dismissed suggestions that Pakistan's relations with the U.S. are being strengthened at New Delhi's cost.

``Hot pursuit is very much on the agenda, but the option does not necessarily have to be solely military,'' he told the Gulf News during his visit to Dubai on Saturday.

He said India should marshal its vast intelligence gathering resources to produce credible evidence against Jaish-e- Mohammad, which initially claimed responsibility for the last week's suicide attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, only to retract later.

Asked whether the rest of the country supported the `hot pursuit', he said ``the rest of India does not live under the gun, so it is easy to talk about peace and dialogue from the comfort of the homes.''

On Islamabad's claim of offering only ``moral and political support'' to militants in Kashmir, the Minister said even this was now in violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution against terror.

``We all know that Maulana Masood Azar and Syed Salahuddin are sitting pretty in Pakistan to provide proof of their complicity in terrorist attacks against our nation'' the Minister said, adding that he was waiting to see the second U.S. list of banned terrorist organisations as he expected Jaish-e- Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba to figure in it.

However, he did not agree with suggestions that Pakistan's relations with the U.S., in the wake of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, were being strengthened at the cost of India.

``If Pakistan's relations with the U.S. are growing, so be it. It is Pakistan which shares border with Afghanistan and we would much rather like to see Pakistan and the ISI to clear up a blunder of their own making. India's relations with the U.S. are on a different keel,'' he added.

There had been a ``perceptible shift'' in the stand taken by Western leaders on militancy in Jammu and Kashmir following the suicide attack on the Assembly and this was reflected in the statements of the leaders of the U.S. and Britain.

- UNI

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