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Lashkar responsible for attack, says Jaswant
By Atul Aneja
NEW DELHI, DEC. 14. India today held the Pakistan based Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT) responsible for Thursday's terrorist attack on the Parliament House and urged Islamabad to take action against this outfit.
In a demarche delivered by the Foreign Secretary, Ms. Chokila Iyer, to the Pakistani High Commissioner, Mr. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, India said that it had enough ``technical evidence'' to hold the LeT responsible.
The External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, said at a press conference this evening that India, on the strength of this evidence, had ``demanded'' from Pakistan the termination of all activities of the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). This includes the detention of the LeT's top leaders and the sealing off of the offices of the two organisations in Pakistan. The JeM was responsible for the October 1 attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. Incidentally, the U.S. State Department has recognised the LeT and the JeM as supporters of terrorism. According to Mr. Singh, India also wanted Pakistan to block the LeT's access to funding.
In case India can prove the LeT's hand in the attack, enormous international pressure can be mounted on Pakistan as this organisation is based near Lahore. This is on account of the provisions of United Nations security Resolution 1373 passed on September 28 which makes it mandatory for all countries to deny ``safe havens'' to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts. Defiance of this is difficult as it can be ``enforced'' under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter.
Not surprisingly, aware of the legal openings for mounting collective pressure on Pakistan, India has shared its evidence with some of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council as well as other key countries.
The demarche takes note of the message sent by Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee. Analysts here say that Gen. Musharraf's statement, for the first time, expressed concern for the well-being of the Indian security forces involved in countering the attack on Parliament. Besides, unlike the past, it does not describe the attackers as ``freedom fighters'' but, instead characterises them as ``armed intruders''. The interpretation here is that the Gen. Musharraf's observations are a response to the mounting international pressure on him to distance Pakistan from terrorism. To a question, Mr. Singh denied that the Pakistani forces had been placed on alert across the Line of Control.
India's actions to counter terrorism after Thursday's attack would be guided by the Cabinet resolution passed on Thursday, Mr. Singh said. He was responding to questions on whether India was planning military retaliation against Pakistan.
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