Perpetrators were 'clients' of ISI: India

Blaming the ISI for the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India said the organisers of the carnage were “clients and creations” of Pakistan’s intelligence agency. At a conference in Paris yesterday, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said India lived “next to the epicentre of terrorism in Pakistan”.

In New Delhi, Home Minister P Chidambaram made it clear that India was yet to receive a formal reply from Pakistan on its investigation into the attacks.

“There is no confusion on this. Both External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and I have said that we have not received any response to the dossier given to Pakistan,’’ he said after a meeting of the Union Cabinet here today.

This is the second time a Union minister has put the record straight on this after a statement from National Security Advisor MK Narayanan that Pakistan has replied to New Delhi’s leads on the attack.

Chidambaram said he had not advocated snapping of relations with Pakistan. Claiming that he was “misquoted” on this, he said, “What I had said was that there are many, many ties between India and Pakistan. If Pakistan does not respond (to the dossier), these may get weaker and weaker and may one day, snap. It is a thought process and not a policy statement.”