'Criminals using fake passports can't be Pakistani'

Islamabad, Jun 30: Pakistan Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik on Friday called on India to provide more details about 26/11 key handler Abu Jundal and said criminals using "fake" passports cannot be Pakistani.

"Pakistan expects to receive a copy of the statement of (Jundal). I expect to have original passport claimed to have been allegedly given by (Pakistan)," Malik wrote in a message posted on Twitter late last night.

Indian authorities have said that Ansari alias Abu Jundal, who is an Indian citizen, had travelled to Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport.

In recent interactions with the media, Malik has questioned whether the passport used by Ansari was genuine.

In another message posted on Twitter, Malik noted that "India had claimed earlier that (Jundal) had a Pakistani passport".

He said criminals using "fake" passports "cannot be Pakistani".

In yet another message, Malik said, Pakistan "will continue to fully cooperate (with) India in the investigation of (Mumbai) terrorist attack. Pak and India need to identify their real enemy."

The two countries "need to know their real common enemy", he said.

He also raised questions about Pakistan-American terror suspect David Headley, asking "who funded him to produce movies of locations" in Mumbai.

On Wednesday, Malik had launched a stunning tirade against India's investigation of recent terror attacks and claimed Jundal could have been behind a "sting operation" to launch the Mumbai attacks from Pakistani soil.

He dismissed assertions by Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram that Pakistani state and non-state actors were involved in the Mumbai attacks and stoutly defended the Inter-Services Intelligence as an "elite agency".

He said, "We are proud of our ISI, which is defending Pakistan."

Indian officials have told the media that Jundal was present in a control room in Karachi that was used by top Lashkar-e-Toiba leaders to guide the attackers in Mumbai who killed 166 people in Nov 2008.

Jundal participated in training the attackers in Pakistan and taught them Hindi, the officials said.

Pakistani authorities have arrested seven suspects, including LeT operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, for planning, financing and facilitating the Mumbai attacks.

However, their trial has stalled for over a year now.

The judge conducting the trial was recently transferred and there have been no hearings this month.

PTI