Click to play videoNew Delhi: Home Minister P Chidmabaram says the government cannot let Pakistani investigators question Mumbai terror attack accused Ajmal Kasab.
Asked if India is willing to grant Kasab the consular access (to the Pakistani mission), Chidambaram told reporters in Chennai that, "Access is given only to citizens of a country. Till date Pakistan has not accepted that Kasab is a Pakistani citizen."
And now India is putting the ball in Pakistan's court. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said New Delhi was willing to share information with Pakistan, provided Islamabad take it to the logical conclusion.
"We are ready to share information with Pakistan as we did in the past. We have several mechanisms and we can share all the information but denial does not help. We expect Pakistan to pursue the same and come to logical conclusions," said Mukherjee.
India has been angry at what it sees as the Pakistani government's tolerance of militants, and the External Affairs Minister had earlier on Thursday said India had given Pakistan a list of 40 people it wants handed over.
Asked by an angry lawmaker why India was not attacking Pakistan after so much proof of its complicity in fomenting trouble in India, Mukherjee replied that war was no solution.
Indian officials had previously demanded that Pakistan hand over 20 suspected terrorists and others it wants for past attacks.
Keeping up the pressure on Pakistan, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived in Islamabad on Thursday to follow up visits by his boss, Condoleezza Rice, to India and Pakistan last week.
Washington has engaged in intensive diplomacy to stop tensions from mounting between Pakistan and India, and to keep Islamabad focused on fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Global pressure has seen Pakistan raid several Islamist militant training camps and detain or arrest some of the militant leaders India wants extradited.
Pakistani security forces have arrested around 20 militants in raids, an intelligence official told Reuters on Thursday.
Analysts say Pakistani intelligence has ties to some of those India wants, and that its civilian government risks political fallout if it acts against them.
The detention of Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant group who now runs the Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity seen as its front, came after the United Nations placed him on its terrorism sanctions list.
Saeed, who is now under house arrest, had led the LeT militant group until December 2001. He quit a few days before Pakistan complied with a US. move to put the group on a list of individuals and organisations with links to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Saeed, one of the most wanted men in India, has since headed the so called charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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