Pak probe into 26/11 case has not moved an inch, says Pillai

New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) India today said attempt tobring the guilty in Mumbai attacks to justice "has not movedan inch" in Pakistan and hoped that country will learn fromNew Delhi''s "fair" handling of the Samjhauta Express blastcase and punish the perpetrators of the 26/11 carnage.

Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai said "no realinvestigation" has taken place in Pakistan and the prosecutionattempt in that country to bring the 26/11 guilty to justice"has not moved an inch" even as

India''s request for providingthe voice samples of the handlers of the attackers has fallenon deaf ears.

When Home Minister P Chidambaram asked for actionagainst the 26/11 perpetrators and voice samples of handlersof the attackers during his Islamabad visit last year, hisPakistani counterpart Rehman Malik told him that "you wouldnot be disappointed by our response".

But, Pillai said that "seven months down the line,there is no Pakistani response. We are disappointed."

No key person, who was actually involved in the 2008Mumbai terror strikes or giving directions to the attackers,has been arrested. Only second or third-level conspiratorswere put behind the bars.

"That is not a real investigation.

"From the steps so far taken by Pakistan, we would saywe are quite pessimistic because when the Home Minister was inIslamabad, the interior Minister actually told him that hewould respond," he said here.

Referring to the investigations in the 2007Samjhauta Express blast case in which right wing Hinduactivists have been arrested, Pillai said Indian governmentwas committed to bring to justice anyone who commits terrorirrespective of his religion or anything else as it considerssuch a person as "nothing but a criminal".

"I think in one sense, it (the probe) shows that weare willing to be fair as far as possible.

"If somebody has done a crime, irrespective of who heis, what is his religion, we will go after him and make surethat he is punished," he said, adding India will shareinformation on the case with Pakistan once the probe is over.

The blast in Samjhauta Express, which runs betweenIndia and Pakistan, took place on the night of February 17,2007 near Panipat in Haryana, leaving 68 people dead, mostlyPakistanis.

The Home Secretary said he hoped that the messagegoes to Pakistan, which is yet to bring the perpetrators ofthe Mumbai terror attack to justice, so that they also do itirrespective of who the person involved is.

Indian investigators have transcripts of the recordedconversations between the terrorists at each of the sites ofthe 26/11 attacks and their handlers based in Pakistan.

India has given the names, photographs and addressesof the handlers and Pakistan just need to check out theirvoices.

"If they give voice samples to us and if these matchwith what we have, then we would know that this guy wassitting in Pakistan and directing the operations in Mumbai.

"You don''t need any further proof," Pillai said. MOREPTI ACB rt SC

On the eve of the second anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks in November last year, India had conveyed toPakistan that "substantive and verifiable" progress has notbeen made in the probe into Mumbai attacks case in thatcountry.

Asking Islamabad to fulfil its "obligation andcommitment" to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 26/11carnage, India had regretted that no feedback has beenreceived on several issues raised by New Delhi.

This included voice samples of Pakistan-based"handlers" of the 10 terrorists who attacked Mumbai andinformation about seven persons involved in the attacks whosenames were given by Chidambaram during his meeting with Malikin June in Islamabad.

The names of seven "handlers" involved in terrorattacks included that of two officers in the Pakistani Army.

New Delhi had also conveyed to Islamabad that it wantsto send a commission to Pakistan to question jailed LeTterrorists, including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, and to get voicesamples of the masterminds who were present in the controlroom directing the attackers.