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India demanded Pakistan hand over 20 of its most-wanted
fugitives as a sign of good faith, while both sides tried to cool
tensions over the Mumbai attacks before a visit by Washington's top
diplomat.
India's foreign minister said military action was not being
considered but later warned a peace process between the two, begun
in 2004, was at risk if Pakistan did not act decisively.
His Pakistani counterpart offered a joint probe to find the
militants responsible for a three-day rampage that killed 183 in
India's financial capital last week.
Indian accusations that Pakistan had again let militants stage
attacks from its soil have stirred longstanding tensions and
threatened to reverse improving ties between the nuclear-armed
rivals.
India renewed its years-old demand for about 20 fugitives it
believes are hiding in Pakistan, via a protest note given to
Pakistan's High Commissioner Shahid Malik in New Delhi on Monday,
Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.
Officials said the Indian list included Dawood Ibrahim, a Mumbai
underworld leader, and Maulana Masood Azhar, a Pakistani Muslim
cleric freed from jail in India in exchange for passengers on a
hijacked plane.
While India was not considering any military response, it reserved
the right to take measures to protect its territorial integrity, he
told India's NDTV.
"We have no intention of not carrying out the peace process,"
Mukherjee told NDTV. "If these incidents...are not adequately
addressed by the other side, it becomes difficult to carry out
business as usual and that includes the peace process."
Rice to visit
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due in India to try to
lower tensions after the attacks in Mumbai, which could threaten a
US-led effort to battle militants along Pakistan's Afghan
border.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, speaking in a
televised address, said Pakistan wanted good relations with India
and that now was not the time for a "blame game, taunts (and)
finger-pointing".
"The government of Pakistan has offered a joint investigating
mechanism and a joint commission to India. We are ready to jointly
go into the depth of this issue and we are ready to compose a team
that could help you," Qureshi said.
Qureshi made no mention of the fugitive list, but Information
Minister Sherry Rehman told reporters: "We have to look at it
formally once we get it and we will frame a response."
Dawood Ibrahim, India's most wanted man, is reported to be living
in Pakistan. Security experts say the underworld boss has militant
ties, and India wants him for bomb attacks in Mumbai in 1993 that
killed at least 250 people.
Mumbai's police chief Hasan Gafoor on Tuesday said the attackers
had trained for a year or more in commando tactics.
"There have been no arrests so far except the one terrorist we have
detained. We are interrogating many suspects," Gafoor told a news
conference, the first since the attacks.
Azam Amir Kasav, the only gunmen of the 10 not killed by commandos,
told investigators he is a Pakistani citizen from Punjab, Gafoor
said. Gafoor declined to comment about the nationalities of the
nine dead militants.
Investigators have said a former Pakistani army officer led the
training, organised by the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba group blamed
for a 2001 attack on India's parliament. Ibrahim is said to be one
of its financial backers.
The 2001 attack nearly set off the fourth war between the two
countries since Pakistan was carved from India in 1947 after
independence from Britain.
The Mumbai attacks have also rocked India's ruling Congress party
coalition. The interior minister has resigned and other top
politicians from the party have offered to step down.
Analysts say Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, facing an election by
May, must walk a delicate line not to upset regional stability
while acting forcefully enough to counter opposition accusations
that Congress is weak on security.
Many Indians have expressed anger at apparent intelligence lapses
and a slow security reaction to the attacks against Mumbai's two
best-known luxury hotels and other landmarks in the city of 18
million.
The city on Tuesday was back at work for a second day since the
attacks, with residents hitting the gym or seeking counselling..
One of the two hotels targeted, the Trident, was due to reopen
soon.
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