INDIA may well have jumped the gun in welcoming the American announcement of a $ 10 million bounty on Hafiz Saeed, as the country now says there is no prosecutable evidence available yet to arrest the Lashkar- e- Tayyeba chief.
The US state department made it clear on Thursday that the reward was for anyone who could provide enough evidence to enable Pakistan to arrest Saeed and put him on trial.
“ Just to clarify, the $ 10 million is for information not about his location, but information that leads to an arrest or conviction,” US state department spokesperson Mark Toner said on Wednesday.
“ This is information that could withstand judicial scrutiny, so I think what’s important here is we’re not seeking his location. We all know where he is. Every journalist in Pakistan knows how to find him. But we’re looking for information that can be usable to convict him,” he said.
When asked if he was hinting at a dearth of evidence to prosecute Saeed, Toner added: “ There is information… there is intelligence that is not necessarily usable in a court of law.”
This is a clear indication that the US does not consider India’s assertion that Saeed masterminded the 26/ 11 attacks credible enough to justify his arrest.
This is bound to displease the Indian government as it has made no bones about its conviction regarding Saeed’s complicity in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Barely two days ago, home minister P. Chidambaram had accused Pakistan of having “ failed in its duty” to arrest Saeed despite there being adequate evidence in the dossier on the 26/ 11 attacks that India had submitted to both the US and Pakistan in 2009.
By citing the absence of prosecutable evidence against Saeed, the US seems to be toeing the line that Pakistan has taken to not arrest him.
Pakistan would also take heart from the fact that the US denied that the $ 10 million bounty was an expression of its lack of confidence in the Pakistani government.
Toner dismissed the theory of a possible faith deficit in the USPakistan relations. “ Not at all. I think we’re trying to work in concert with the Pakistani government in order to bring Saeed to justice. This is not to put pressure on any one government, but we wanted to be able to provide Pakistan with the tools that they need to prosecute this individual,” he said.
‘ INTERNAL ISSUE’
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Thursday said the case of Hafiz Saeed was an internal issue and any evidence against him should be provided to Pakistan so that the courts can take action. He made the remarks while responding to points raised by lawmakers during a joint session of the National Assembly and Senate about the US bounty on Saeed. Gilani said he had taken up the bounty issue with visiting US deputy secretary of state Thomas Nides. He pointed out that cases against Saeed were dismissed in the past due to lack of evidence. ( With PTI inputs)