Pakistan Snubs India Over Terrorist 'suspects'

Pakistan's president yesterday rebuffed India's key demand that he hand over 20 alleged terrorists, as the US intensified its efforts to ease tensions between the two nuclear powers in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Speaking from Delhi, the visiting US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, told Pakistan it had a "special responsibility" to help India's investigation into the terrorist attacks. Washington also sent its most senior military official to Islamabad to hammer home the same message.

Western powers, led by the US, are trying to stop tensions between the two countries spilling over after last week's attacks in Mumbai, which killed more than 170 people. India and Pakistan have fought three wars and had numerous skirmishes in the past 60 years.

India has demanded that Pakistan stop providing sanctuary to 20 people it alleges are linked to violence against it. But Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, yesterday appeared to reject this demand, saying the 20 would be tried in Pakistan if there was evidence to charge them.

Zardari's comments are likely to anger India's government, which is under sustained pressure from its people to take strong action in the wake of the attacks.

Delhi says all 10 terrorists in Mumbai were Pakistani, and had received training there for a terrorist plot controlled from Pakistan that subjected India to a four-day national nightmare.

Zardari told CNN: "If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts and we would sentence them." He said he doubted that the only terrorist captured alive was a Pakistani citizen, as India alleges. "We have not been given any tangible proof that he is definitely a Pakistani."

Yesterday Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, arrived in Pakistan. Mullen urged Pakistan to "investigate aggressively any and all possible ties to groups in Pakistan" and "take more and more concerted action against militant extremists in the country".

Most analysts, though, believe the eight-month-old Zardari presidency has limited room for manoeuvre, even if it wants to help India's investigation. Zardari's civilian government faces pressure from hardline groups not only to resist Indian demands, but over the help provided to the west's war against al-Qaida and Taliban elements in its border region with Afghanistan.

But in Delhi, Rice said: "This is the time for everybody to cooperate and do so transparently ... Pakistan needs to act with resolve and urgency. That message has been delivered to Pakistan."

In Mumbai, public confidence in India's authorities suffered another blow after it emerged that bombs lay undiscovered for a week at the city's main rail station attacked by terrorists last Wednesday. Police found explosives hidden in a bag among abandoned luggage.