Pakistan may prosecute militants involved in Mumbai attack

Islamabad, Jan.30 (ANI): A Pakistani official has told CBS News on condition on anonymity that it is likely that some of the militants detained in Pakistan in connection with the NOvember 2008 terror attack on Mumbai, "will be prosecuted on charges that have yet to be spelled out."

He said that Pakistani investigators have completed their probe into the alleged links between some of the 124 militants detained in the country and the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008.

Western diplomats responding to the news, said a prosecution of this kind would be the first ever undertaken by Pakistan.

The Mumbai attacks were followed by widespread international anxiety over the possibility that India might launch limited air strikes on suspected militant targets in Pakistan.

That move would have inevitably prompted Islamabad to retaliate, a situation which could quickly have triggered an all out war, analysts warned.

Pakistan has been under intense pressure from the United States and other allies to take action against militants in the country, at the insistence of India.

Pakistan banned Jamaat-ud-dawa (JUD), an Islamic charity believed to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Islamic militant group believed to have been behind the attacks, which was banned more than six years ago.

Pakistani government officials have complained repeatedly that India has failed to hand over credible evidence that could be used to prosecute the Mumbai suspects.

A senior Western diplomat told CBS News Thursday: "This is a way to put these people behind bars." (ANI)