Author: TNN
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 7, 2009
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Terror_evidence_in_Indian_dossier_credible_US/articleshow/3947694.cms
The evidence contained in the dossier given
by India to Pakistan about the involvement of Pakistanis in the November 26
Mumbai terror attack is "credible", the US ambassador to New Delhi
David Mulford said on Wednesday in what marked a major endorsement of evidence
that India has gathered against the perpetrators of 26/11.
The remarks of Mulford, one of the 14 envoys
who were shown the evidence by India's foreign ministry on Monday, also represented
a rebuff to Pakistan's rejection of the evidence as not credible.
"We don't go after non-credible evidence",
said Mulford in his farewell interaction with the editors of The Times of
India after a successful five-year-tenure that was highlighted by the signing
of the nuclear energy deal and greater bilateral convergence on an array of
issues. "What was disturbing that the attack was carried out from the
territory of Pakistan,'' Mulford said.
Rejecting the suggestion that India and the
US may not be "on the same page" in dealing with Pakistan on the
Mumbai attack issue, the US ambassador said: "We are absolutely on the
same ground." "When somebody kills Americans somewhere we go after
him," he added.
The ambassador, in fact, confirmed that the
FBI helped Indian agencies prepare the dossier. He added that the agency was
mandated to go after the masterminds of Mumbai attacks in which six Americans
were killed.
Mulford further said that the FBI team which
has received Pakistani visas has sought access to certain individuals and
places.
He sought to counter the perception that Americans,
critically dependent on Pakistan for the success of their fight against Taliban,
will not lean hard on Pakistan. "Americans have different ways of skinning
a cat," he said in a remark that could be seen as a reference to the
American efforts to open parallel logistic routes to Afghanistan through Russia
and Central Asia as well as the belief that they continue to have leverage
on important state actors in Pakistan.
