26/11 attacks: Pak will prosecute 125 terrorists

Lahore, Feb 3: The Pakistan Government is planning to prosecute as many as 125 terrorists, who might be involved in the Mumbai terror attacks in Nov 2008.

The group, which includes "anyone who made any suspicious contacts inside India as the attacks began", would be charged under Pakistan's cyber crimes laws because suspects used Internet phones to communicate, ABC News quoted an unidentified senior intelligence official, as saying.

"But few if any of the major terrorist leaders India is asking Pakistan to prosecute are included on this list," the official was quoted as saying.

The report reflected the delicate balance Pakistan was trying to achieve: "Appeasing international pressure to crack down on terrorists who have operated from its soil, and at the same time not completely dismantling groups that the intelligence agencies still see as assets."

India has blamed Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and its 'charity arm' Jamaat-ud-Dawa for planning the attacks.

ABC News said despite promises of a crackdown on terrorists, the government had still not indicated any plans to prosecute anyone related to the Nov attacks, as it was required to by a United Nations Security Council resolution passed in early Dec.

"We assure India if somebody is found guilty, we'll proceed according to our own laws of Pakistan," Prime Minsiter Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Sunday.

Asked if plans to prosecute were evidence of Pakistani leaders' suspecting the Obama administration would be tougher on them than was the Bush administration, ABC News quoted an Obama administration official as saying, "I see this as evidence that Pakistan recognises these extremists threaten Pakistan as well as the US."

"We need an alliance against the extremists, and I believe that is what you will see us work to build."

The 125 men who were arrested around the country following the attacks, will appear in a court "as early as tomorrow", ABC News quoted the Interior Ministry, as saying.

ANI