NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon has said Pakistan's spy agency was linked to planners behind the Mumbai attack, the first time the government has directly named the organization over November's deadly raids. "The perpetrators planned, trained and launched their attacks from Pakistan, and the organizers were and remain clients and creations of the ISI," Menon said in a speech in Paris, referring to the military spy agency.
Menon's speech steps up India's rhetoric against Pakistan and reflects growing frustration from New Delhi. In the speech, Menon accused Pakistan of "prevarication" in investigating the attacks and bringing the perpetrators to justice. The speech was delivered at a foreign affairs conference in Paris on Wednesday but was released to the media on Thursday by India's foreign ministry.
Relations between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have been strained since militants killed 179 people in the attacks, and India has put dialogue on hold. Pakistan said Indian officials should avoid making such statements at a time when Islamabad was in the process of investigating the matter. "One should not jump the gun. Some patience should be shown," foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said.
...while we plan the next one.
Analysts and diplomats said Menon's remarks were a sign of India's impatience with Pakistan and a growing feeling in New Delhi that the civilian government in Islamabad would do nothing that would show the ISI in a critical light. "These comments are a result of that endless wait, and India believes that the civilian government of Pakistan has been given a tight brief by the army not to allow the heat to reach the corridors of the ISI," Naresh Chandra, India's former ambassador to the United States, told Reuters. "The patience is coming to an end and it is beginning to evolve as an endless exercise as India is waiting for a fair response from Pakistan for far too long."
India blames the banned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group for the attacks in its commercial hub and said there must have been support from Pakistani official agencies, but generally never mentions the ISI by name.
Pakistan has denied any involvement by state agencies and says it is investigating a dossier of information from India. It still has not responded to India's dossier. The dossier contained the confession of a surviving attacker, satellite phone intercepts between the attackers and their handlers in Pakistan, and a list of Pakistani-made weapons used by the militants, India said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday that Pakistan must fully investigate the attacks in India's financial hub and cooperate with the Indian government on the issue.
Harrrrumph harrrumph harrrumph...
Menon said a promising peace dialogue with Pakistan had fallen victim to repeated breach of a 2003 ceasefire between the two countries, increased cross-border infiltration and attacks on Indian interests and cities from Pakistan. He said India was willing to work with Pakistan and the international community to bring peace in South Asia. "Given the fragile and unfinished nature of the polity beside us, there is much that the international community can do to help," he said. "For instance, arms sales to Pakistan totally unrelated to the fight against terrorism or extremism are like whiskey to an alcoholic, a drug reinforcing an addiction, skewing the internal political balance, and making the consolidation of democracy more difficult."