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ISI involved in Kabul attack, says Narayanan

New Delhi: India has intelligence inputs about Pakistan’s involvement in Monday’s suicide attack on its embassy in Kabul, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said on Saturday. “We not only suspect but we have a fair amount of intelligence [on the involvement of Pakistan],” Mr. Narayanan told television channels when asked whether India suspected Pakistan’s hand.

“The ISI needs to be destroyed. We made this point, whenever we have had a chance, to interlocutors across the world... there might have been some tactical restraint for some time, obviously that restraint is no longer present,” he said.

Specifically asked about reports that the agency was involved, he said “we have no doubt that the ISI is behind this.”

“The people of this country deserve to know the facts rather than being carried away by people who make statements that these are insinuations. There are no insinuations,” he said.

Four Indians, including senior IFS officer V.V. Rao and Brigadier R.D. Mehta, Defence Attache, were killed in the blast caused by a suicide bomber.

The NSA said there was a need to retaliate against such acts. “I think we need to pay back in the same coin. We are quite clear in our mind,” he said. Asked who should be paid back, he replied, “Those who are responsible.”

Whether such retaliatory acts would not impede the peace process, he said: “I don’t think the ISI has ever been a part of the peace process.... I think we need to make a distinction” between the two.

He said India-Pakistan relations were sought to be improved through a comprehensive dialogue mechanism.

“The anti-terror mechanism was one piece of this picture. The hope was that in course of time both sides would share whatever information they have and come up with a holistic idea of what was going on,” he said.

“Talk-talk is better than fight-fight. But it hasn’t worked so far. In some way, we haven’t arrived at the decision that we should go for fight-fight so let talk-talk continue for the moment,” he said. The NSA said there was a “hiccup” in the peace process towards the end of 2006 and early 2007.

“It hasn’t really picked up....we are hoping that the new administration will take this up again.” — PTI

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