http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/mumbaiterrorstrike/Story.aspx?ID=NEWEN20080078346&type=News
Press Trust of India

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 8:52 PM (New Delhi)

With no advocate willing to defend Ajmal Qasab, a Delhi-based lawyer on Wednesday offered to appear for the lone captured terrorist involved in the Mumbai terror attacks.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/mumbaiterrorstrike/Story.aspx?ID=NEWEN20080078332&type=News

Press Trust of India

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 6:15 PM (London)

Ref: merinews.com

December 31, 2008

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/31mumterror-let-commander-planned-attack-on-ins-virat.htm
Vicky Nanjappa

December 31, 2008 17:45 IST

The confession of Zarar Shah, a key Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative, about his involvement in the Mumbai terror attack has further strengthened India’s case against terror elements operating inside Pakistan territory.

ref : rediff.com

December 31, 2008

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/31mumterror-the-man-behind-the-mumbai-terror-attacks.htm

Vicky Nanjappa

December 31, 2008 15:22 IST

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1217795

PTI

Wednesday, December 31, 2008  15:19 IST

CHANDIGARH: India on Wednesday slammed Pakistan for being in a denial mode on the involvement of elements based in that country in the Mumbai attacks and said Islamabad’s “defiance” of the world opinion would not be conducive for the overall stability of the region.

“We have given enough evidence (against perpetrators of last month’s Mumbai terror attacks). Evidence is not only with India but also with the investigating agencies of the US and the UK,” minister of state for external affairs Anand Sharma said here.

Sharma said the UN Security Council has adopted a unanimous resolution against terrorism. “It is regrettable that Pakistan has been rejecting (evidence). Pakistan is in a state of denial and defiance of the world opinion is not conducive for the overall stability of the region.”

He said “it will be good if the acknowledgment is given forthwith by Pakistan. This fact (who are involved in the Mumbai strikes) is known to the entire world. Everyone knows who are the conspirators and from where they came.

“Instead of being in a denial mode, Pakistan should take effective step to bring those responsible for attacks to justice,” he said.

Noting that India did not want any military action against Pakistan, Sharma said “firm diplomatic initiatives have given results.”

To repeated queries on the issue of military action, he said “we are a mature democracy…we are talking of individuals and organisations based in Pakistan.”

On the issue of Let commander Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, the suspected mastermind behind the Mumbai attacks, whom India wantes handed over, Sharma said “we are very clear that those who are responsible must be brought to justice.”

He said the assurances given by Pakistan to India and the international community must be honoured by it.

“Pakistan should take effective steps so that its territory is not used for terrorists attacks in India and it must dismantle the infrastructure in its territory used for such attacks,” he said.

Admitting that the relations between the two countries are at “one of the lowest” levels, he said Pakistan is responsible for the escalation of tension with India.

Sharma cautioned Pakistan against any misadventure and said India is capable of protecting itself. “We hope no body tests India’s strength,” he said.
     
Ruling out the fixing of any timeframe for Pakistan to take action against the perpetrators of Mumbai attacks, he said “under the international law it is obligatory for Pakistan to take action as India is having overwhelming evidence on it.

“It is in the interest of Pakistan (to take effective action)  for the stability of that country,” he said.

“We never created the situation…this has been invented by the other side…Pakistan is trying to deflect from the real issue,” Sharma said, while adding that “India never talked about (additional) deployment of forces along its borders with Pakistan. It is Pakistan which did it…it is unwarranted.”

Noting that “earlier actions of Pakistan (against act of terrorism) were not effective,” he said those who funded the terrorist attacks could not be placed under house arrest.

“It is for the world community to see whether the action by Pakistan is adequate,” he said.
      
On being asked whether release of prisoners will continue in future too, he said “humanitarian aspect is never overruled during the difficult times.”
      
Terrorism has to be eradicated, he stressed while adding that the terror organisations must be neutralised.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/mumbaiterrorstrike/Story.aspx?ID=NEWEN20080078300&type=News

Press Trust of India

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 12:19 PM (Mumbai)

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/31mumterror-kasabs-letter-not-written-by-a-real-pakistani.htm

A top Pakistani official has sought to doubt the authenticity of the letter written by Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone gunman captured for the Mumbai terror attacks, to seek legal aid from the Pakistan government.

Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah claimed the language and content of the letter did not “match those of a real Pakistani”.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/31mumterror-lashkar-commander-zarar-shah-confesses-involvement-in-mumbai-attacks.htm

December 31, 2008 14:38 IST
Last Updated: December 31, 2008 16:31 IST

Top Lashkar-e-Tayiba [Images] commander Zarar Shah captured in the crackdown on militants earlier this month in Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, has confessed the group’s involvement in the terror attacks in Mumbai, a media report said on Wednesday.

Shah has also implicated other LeT members, and had broadly confirmed the confession made by the sole captured militant Ajmal Kasab to Indian investigators–that the 10 assailants trained in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and then went by boat from Karachi to Mumbai, the Wall Street Journal reported quoting a senior Pakistani security official.

The paper said Pakistan’s own investigationof terror attacks in Mumbai had begun to show substantive links between the LeT and 10 gunmen who took part in the Mumbai mission.

Pakistani security officials were quoted as saying that a top Lashkar commander, Zarar Shah, has admitted a role in the Mumbai attack during interrogation. The paper quoted a person familiar with investigation as saying that Shah also admitted that the attackers spent at least a few weeks in Karachi, training in urban combat to hone skills they would use in their assault.

The disclosure, it said, could add new international pressure on Pakistan to accept that the attacks, which left 183 dead in India, originated within its borders and to prosecute or extradite the suspects.

That raises difficult and potentially destabilising issues for the country’s new civilian government, its military and the spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence–which is conducting interrogations of militants it once cultivated as partners, the Journal said.

“He is singing,” the security official said of Shah.

The admission, the official told the paper, is backed up by US intercepts of a phone call between Shah and one of the attackers at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, the site of a 60-hour confrontation with Indian security forces.

A second person familiar with the investigation was quoted by the Journal as saying that Shah told Pakistani interrogators that he was one of the key planners of the operation, and that he spoke with the attackers during the rampage to give them advice and keep them focused.

Shah, the paper said, was picked up along with fellow Lashkar commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi during the military camp raids in PoK. The probe, the Journal said, also is stress-testing an uncomfortable shift under way at Pakistan’s spy agency – and the government — since the election of civilian leadership replacing the military-led regime earlier this year.

Military and intelligence officials, it says, acknowledge they have long seen India as their primary enemy and Islamist extremists such as Lashkar as allies. But now the ISI is in the midst of being revamped, and its ranks purged of those seen as too soft on Islamic militants.

That revamp and the Mumbai attacks are in turn putting pressure on the civilian leadership, which risks a backlash among the population — and among elements of ISI and the military — if it is too accommodating to India.

“Don’t fight the ISI. It can make or break any regime in Pakistan,” retired General Mirza Aslam Beg, a former army chief, was quoted as saying.

The delicate politics of the Mumbai investigation, the Journal said, have given the spy agency renewed sway just when the government was trying to limit its influence. A Western diplomat told the paper that the question now is what Pakistan will do with the evidence it is developing.

The big fear in the West and India is a repeat of what happened after a 2001 attack on India’s parliament, which led to the ban on Lashkar.

Top militant leaders were arrested only to be released months later, the Journal noted. Lashkar and other groups continued to operate openly, even though formal ISI links were scaled back or closed, the diplomat was quoted as saying.

“They’ve got the guys. They have the confessions. What do they do now?” the diplomat said. “We need to see that this is more than a show. We want to see the entire infrastructure of terror dismantled.
There needs to be real prosecutions this time.”

A spokesman for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Farhatullah Babar, was quoted as saying on Tuesday that he wasn’t aware of the Pakistani investigation yet producing any links between Lashkar militants and the Mumbai attacks.

“The Interior Ministry has already stated that the government of Pakistan has not been furnished with any evidence,” he said.

The Pakistani security official, it said, cautioned that the investigation is still in early stages and a “more full picture” could emerge once India decides to share more information.

Pakistani authorities didn’t have evidence that LeT was involved in the attacks before the militants’ arrest in PoK, the security official claimed. They were captured based only on initial guidance from US and British authorities.