Dawood in pocket, Pak offers help in Mumbai blast case

NEW DELHI: Rubbing salt to India’s wounds, Pakistan on Thursday said that it was ready to help India’s investigation into the Mumbai bomb blasts that killed 198 people on Tuesday.

“Pakistan stands ready along with the international community to help India’s investigation, because terrorism is a global problem,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told a news agency. She said such help would be “unconditional” and in no way dependent on a resolution of Pakistan’s dispute with India over Kashmir.

The offer of help coincides with the investigating agencies collecting definite leads about the involvement of Paksitan-based terrror outfit, Lashkar-e-Toiba. Although the government leadership is still reluctant to put the blame at Pakistan’s doorsteps, the external affairs ministry had on Wednesday asked Islamabad to keep its promise of July, ‘04, to curtail terror activities. Opposition parties here have been accusing the government of not doing enough to make Pakistan keep its side of the peace bargain.

President Pervez Musharraf made a similar offer to share information to help Indian investigators in the aftermath of a series of bomb blasts that killed 69 people in New Delhi last October. This was rejected by India as in that attack too the perpetrators of the crime had links with outfits operating out of Pakistan.

Various parts of the country witnessed anti-Pakistan demonstrations on Thursday. In New Delhi, the All India Anti-Terrorist Front supporters shouted anti-Musharraf slogans and decried Pakistan’s role in the Tuesday’s bomb blasts in Mumbai and Srinagar. Various peaceful protests also condemned the serial blasts.