Republican Congressman and others condemn Mumbai attacks

Washington, Nov 28 (UNI) The coordinated terrorist attacks in Mumbai, 'India's financial center' has served as an attack on the country's economic boom, which ahs attained growth rates of nine per cent over the past three years, Republican Congressman Ed Royce said.

Ed Royce, a Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs sub-committee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, said, ''it is often said that India and America have a natural bond as the two largest democracies.'' Today, we share a bond of a common enemy, what the 9/11 Commission identified as Islamist terrorism. Islamist ideology is spreading across South Asia, and must be stamped out. I am confident in the aftermath of these attacks, we will see all the resilience that is embodied in the Indian people, the US lawmaker said in a statement.

Indian Muslim Council-USA (IMC-USA) President Rasheed Ahmed said, ''the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity should be captured and punished to the maximum extent of the law.'' IMC-USA, an advocacy group dedicated towards safeguarding India's pluralist and tolerant ethos, also called on the Indian government to setup a high level commission to investigate the increasing scourge of violence and terrorism in the country and ways to engage the civil society in effectively curbing this menace.

The Kashmiri American Council (KAC) has also expressed its utter disgust at the Mumbai terrorist attacks and urged the authorities to pursue all reasonable efforts to investigate, apprehend, and punish those who are guilty of committing these reprehensible crimes against humanity.

The US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) has urged the United States to stand with India at this time juncture.

If we allow such attacks to occur in democratic allies such as India and elsewhere, we will embolden the terrorists to further threaten our interests, and those of our friends, everywhere, it said in a statement.

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