Date:04/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/04/stories/2009010455270900.htm

National

Mumbai attacks an “act of war,” says Rushdie

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: Novelist Salman Rushdie, who grew up in what was then Bombay and insists on calling it by that name, has described the attacks on Mumbai as an “act of war.”

“There is no question that this was Pakistan. You could see it as an act of war,” he told The Times on Saturday urging the West to be “tougher” on Islamabad.

Accusing Pakistan of misleading the world into believing that it was fighting terror, he said: “It is trying to play both ends against the middle — to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can’t be both things. This country [Britain] should make clear that as long as Pakistan harbours terrorists it’s not going to get any Western aid.”