Pakistan will not hand over terror suspects: Reports
3 Dec 2008, 1306 hrs IST, PTI
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will not hand over any of the listed 20 terrorists wanted by India in the wake of the terror attacks in Mumbai, according to a
media report.
Some of the terrorists in the list currently do not live in the country while others are under constant surveillance by Pakistan's security and intelligence agencies, official sources told the The News daily.
"There is no precedent of handing over any alleged suspect to India and vice versa. So turning these 20 persons over to India is out of question because we have our own surveillance apparatus in place and we have confirmed that none of them was involved in any suspected activity while some of them are currently not even living in Pakistan," the paper quoted an official as saying.
"The organisations banned by the (Pervez) Musharraf regime in the wake of the 9/11 incident have been under constant surveillance and all those freed have already been cleared by intelligence agencies after thorough investigations," he said.
There has been no official word on the names included in the list, which was discussed at a meeting of political parties convened yesterday by Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to evolve a consensus on dealing with the tensions with India.
Emerging from the meeting, former federal minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the names of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon and Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Maulana Masood Azhar figured in the list. Ahmed also said there was nothing new about India's demand for handing over these men.
The name of Lashker-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Mohammed Saeed is also on the list, official sources said. The LeT has been blamed by Indian security officials for carrying out the Mumbai attacks.
After the LeT was banned by Pakistan in 2001, Saeed formed the Jamat-ud-Dawah, which has its headquarters at Muridke near Lahore.
India says Dawood Ibrahim, the mastermind of the 1993 bombings in Mumbai that killed nearly 260 people, is living in Pakistan but authorities here have denied the accusation.
The official told paper that members of the outlawed groups, who were involved in suspicious activities, had been apprehended when a crackdown was launched against such elements by the Musharraf regime.
Jamat-ud-Dawah spokesman Yahya Mujahid rejected Indian charges about Saeed's links to the attacks and said Pakistani authorities are "already watching their activities". Had there been any doubts, "they would not have been allowed to go free", he said.
"Everybody knows that the previous regime would not have let us live in freedom had it suspected any of our activities. It is mere Indian propaganda so as to conceal the failure of its intelligence and law enforcement agencies," Mujahid claimed.
"The Indian claims are aimed at hoodwinking the Indian people. However, it is up to the Pakistani government to decide as to what to do and how to respond to the Indian demand in a befitting manner," he said.
When his attention was drawn to reports about fears that India might carry out air strikes on the headquarters of the Jamat-ud-Dawah in Muridke, Mujahid refused to comment saying it was the responsibility of Pakistan's armed forces to protect the country's frontiers against any outside aggression.
"Like all other people of the country, we will stand behind the armed forces of the country if the Indians resort to any aggression against Pakistan to conceal their own criminal negligence that resulted in the Mumbai mayhem," he said
