Target terror leaders in Pak: India tells US

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Target terror leaders in Pak: India tells US

 

 

 

 

NEW DELHI: Beyond the campaign against Osama bin Laden, terror leaders

in Pakistan should also be the target of America's war against

terrorism, India said Tuesday as it observed a day of mourning for

the victims of the US attacks.

 

"We are trying to tell America that the war against terrorism does

not end with waging war against one man," Information and

Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan told reporters. "If we are

seeking bin Laden dead or alive for what happened on September 11,

what about March 11?"

 

On that day in 1993, 13 car bombings in the Indian financial capital

of Mumbai killed some 800 people and destroyed the country's main

stock exchange, the headquarters of the national carrier Air India,

and several other installations across the metropolis.

 

The prime minister was talking here to reporters after the launch of

the Indian Business Trust for HIV/AIDS set up by the Confederation of

Indian Industry.

 

Asked if the US had so far made any specific requests to India,

Vajpayee said, "No specific requests". He dismissed a question on

whether India would give whatever the US sought from it in its war

against terrorism saying, "It's a hypothetical question what we'll do

then."

 

Home Minister L.K. Advani reportedly said in Sonepat on Tuesday that

India would give all possible help to the US in its fight against

terrorism. The Cabinet, which was briefed by External Affairs

Minister Jaswant Singh, too discussed the situation arising out of

the terror attacks on USA.

 

 

The Prime Minister said security in the country had already been

strengthened in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the US,

and "we are strengthening it further."

 

He, however, refused to answer a question on Pakistan imposing

conditions on support to the US.

 

India observed Tuesday as Anti-Terrorism Day to mourn the deaths in

the terrorist attacks - in which 250 Indians are also believed to

have been killed - and to express solidarity with the effort to

tackle terrorism. Across the country, millions stood in their homes,

work places and even on roads and playgrounds to observe two minutes

of silence.

 

Emotions are still raw over other terrorist attacks that have scarred

the country over the past five decades.

 

Islamabad has refused to hand over five hijackers belonging to the

Harkat-ul Mujahedeen, which according to Indian officials is a part

of bin Laden's international front for "jihad" - or holy war -

against Christians and Jews.

 

On Christmas Eve in 1999, the five men forced the crew of an Indian

Airlines jetliner at gunpoint to fly from the Nepalese capital of

Kathmandu to the Afghan city of Kandahar.

 

They killed one passenger and wounded another but freed almost 170 in

exchange for three top militant leaders then kept in Indian prisons,

including Maulana Masood Azhar, a feared cleric who is a friend of

bin Laden and is recognised as the international leader and financier

of Islamic jihad campaigns.

 

A group now led by Azhar and several other Islamic guerrilla

organizations based across Pakistan publicly collect donations and

recruit fighters to be sent to Kashmir to fight Indian security

forces in a campaign that India says has the backing of Islamabad

with weapons and arms.

 

Pakistan calls them "freedom fighters." India says the militants are

terrorists, and it has shared with the United States evidence that

points a finger at Pakistan as a nation that harbors and backs

Islamic guerrilla groups, and has close links with bin Laden.

 

US President George W Bush has threatened retaliation against the

terrorists behind the attacks and those who harbour them. India could

provide intelligence to the United States if it undertakes a military

response in Afghanistan, where bin Laden has lived since 1996,

officials say