Rome, July 08 : India faces greater terror threat than what it had faced few months back and would ask Pakistan during the Foreign Secretary-level talks on July 14 to take ‘demonstrable action’ to curtail activities of terror groups operating on its soil and bring perpetrators of Mumbai terror attacks to justice, highly placed government functionaries said.
”Terror threat is greater today than few months ago as indicated by the Home Minister’s statement. We don’t want to create panic, but there is enough credible threat to India from Pakistani soil. So, Pak authorities would have to work and take lot of action to curtail such activities,” they said and lamented that not enough action was being taken by Islamabad in this regard.
Though state agencies were not involved in all activities but action like spoofing of Thuraya phones indicated some level of involvement, they added.
Not satisfied with the arrest of five people by Pakistani authorities and declaring 22 others as proclaimed offenders for their involvement in the conspiracy behind the Mumbai terror attacks, they said, ”We are not interested in their (Pak’s) judicial process but to bring perpetrators of 26/11 to justice and dismantling of terror infrastructure on Pak soil”.
This would be the thrust of discussion during the Foreign Sectretary-level talks on July 14 on the sidelines of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting in Egypt.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon would meet his Pakistani counterpart and reiterate New Delhi’s concerns and report Pakistan’s response to the government which would take stock of the situation after which a decision would be taken regarding the composite dialogue process, they added.
Asserting that talks with Islamabad were still going on various level, they said if Pakistan wanted to restart the composite dialogue process then terrorism was the major issue that needed to be discussed.
Regarding the increased US aid to Pakistan to fight terrorism, they said though India has never objected, the type of equipment acquired by Islamabad was not fit for operation against terror outfits.
”We have long past the stage in which we used to protest to the US,” they said and added that the US administration has to explain to the US Congress that the aid to Pakistan was not diverted for other purposes.
Regarding International community’s response to Indo-Pak dialogue, they said every country understood India’s position, but they have left it to India and Pakistan to decide the time and content of the dialogue process.
They added that New Delhi and Islamabad had to work themselves on this issue. People of India want real, visible action from Pakistan to prevent terror attacks on Indian soil which is the prime concern.
Asked whether they exepected any breakthrough during the Foreign Secretary-level talks, they said, ”this is not a T-20 match which would yield immediate result. Pakistan will have to show through its action.”
–Agencies