India not interested in Pak offer of joint probe

NEW DELHI: Even as Pakistan's foreign minister offered a joint investigation into the Mumbai attacks, it's clear that India is not interested in such tokenism. In fact, sources in government were clear that since the joint anti-terror mechanism had not worked, Pakistan joining the investigations was irrelevant.

On Tuesday, as more and more countries appeared ranged on India's side in the fight against terrorism, Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said he had offered the Indian government that Islamabad could join the probe. Pakistan, he said, had offered a "joint investigative mechanism and joint commission".

"We are ready to collectively reach to the bottom of this and to compose a team which can help you," he said.

The post-Mumbai probe has seen Indian investigators being helped by the FBI, Israeli Shin Bet and the UK's Metropolitan counter-terrorism squad.

India's disenchantment with the joint anti-terror mechanism is not new but the government has persisted with this ill-conceived CBM, which Pakistan has often used as a propaganda platform against India.

The mechanism was conceived in September 2006 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon when he was preparing to meet Pervez Musharraf in Havana after a period of chill following the Mumbai train attacks which had a clear Pakistani imprint. The whole idea then was to pack terrorism into this mechanism which would allow the composite dialogue to go on unhindered.

The Mumbai attacks have proved that the premise of the group was a flawed one. Not only has it not stopped any terrorist attack from Pakistan, it has not helped in a single investigation either. Instead, it has given Pakistan cover while pretending to the world that it was helping Indian concerns, while giving itself a kind of perverted parity with India which says that both countries are equal victims of terrorism. Mumbai proved otherwise.