Pakistani agencies involved in Mumbai attacks: India

India’s government says it has ‘overwhelming evidence’ that ‘official agencies’ of Pakistan were involved in the militant attacks on Mumbai that left 165 people dead.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram also accused Pakistan in a TV interview to be aired on Sunday, of doing nothing to dismantle ‘the infrastructure of terrorism’ on its soil amid.
‘Given the overwhelming evidence we have, I am entitled to presume that official agencies (of Pakistan) were involved (in the attacks),’ he said.
Chidambaram added that the threat faced by India from ‘Pakistan-based militants’ remained virtually undiminished.
His comments came as security has emerged as a top issue in general elections to be held from April 16 to May 13.
They were the latest in a stream of Indian government criticism of Pakistan since the November attacks that killed 165 people, reflecting what analysts say is New Delhi’s anger over what it regards as Islamabad’s laxness in taking strong action against the planners.
India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in January that the Mumbai attacks must have had the ‘support of some official agencies in Pakistan’ due to the sophistication of the assault.
India has accused the Lashkar-e-Taiba group of staging the November attacks.
Asked if Pakistan had dismantled the militant infrastructure on its turf, Chidambaram told India’s CNN-IBN network that ‘none’ of the militant training camps had been destroyed ‘to the best of my knowledge’.
The Pakistanis were only destroying ‘training camps that mushroom in villages with ‘kutcha’ (temporary) structures’ and ‘can be dismantled and erected elsewhere,’ he said.
‘They (Pakistan) are still attempting to infiltrate people across the border and across the Line of Control (which divides disputed Kashmir), he said.
‘Therefore, we have put our (security) forces on a high alert between now and the elections.’
Indian media have been reporting that senior politicians, including Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, could be on a hit-list of ‘Pakistan-based militant groups.’