New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee replied to Pakistan’s 26/11 probe during the Budget session in Parliament on Friday.
Describing Pakistan's response to India's dossier "a positive development", he said Islamabad should unveil the full conspiracy behind the assaults and asked it to act in a completely transparent and verifiable manner against the Mumbai terrorists.
Mukherjee emphasised that Pakistan has to ensure that the terror infrastructure in that country is dismantled.
“We will continue to review the situation, including Pakistan's responses and will take further steps that we deem necessary to protect our people,” the Minister said.
“Authorities in Pakistan have to choose the kind of relationship that they want with India in future; much depends on actions in the Mumbai case reaching their logical conclusion,” he added.
Mukherjee also said that India has “no quarrel with people of Pakistan and hence we do not feel it necessary to curtail people-to-people contacts.”
The minister spoke about Pakistan's earlier response to the Mumbai attacks which was characterised by "prevarication, denial, diversionary tactics and a misplaced sense of victimhood" and hoped that Islamabad would now act to prevent a "recurrence of such acts".
Much depends on the way the Mumbai incident is brought to its logical conclusion, he stressed.
Terming terrorism emanating from Pakistan a "global menace and cancer", Mukherjee also reminded Pakistan to honour its bilateral and international obligations not to allow its territory to be used for terror attacks against India.
"The international community has also worked with us using its influence on Pakistan to ensure that the terrorist infrastructure and the support provided to such elements is put to an end," he stated.
Pakistan for the first time has admitted the involvement of its nationals in the November 26-29 terror attack in Mumbai in which over 170 people were killed.
Responding to Pakistan's demand for more information and material relating to the terror strike, India agreed to examine the issues and will share whatever it can with Pakistan.
"It remains India's goal to bring the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai to book, and to follow this process through to the end," Mukherjee said.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said at a crowded news conference in Islamabad on Thursday that the terrorists were "non-state actors".
"This is an individual act, act of individuals or non-state actors. Their purpose is to create terror for their own motives. These motives need to be determined. Both India and Pakistan need to work it out," he said. "A part of the conspiracy has been done in Pakistan," Mailk admitted, but claimed "a major part was shaped in India".
He said a first information report (FIR) was registered in Islamabad on Thursday.
The FIR has named nine people, including Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, leader of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving attacker captured during the Mumbai mayhem, as well as Javed Iqbal of Barcelona who had allegedly played a role in funding the attackers.
The US too has termed Pak's admission as important first step and promised to ensure that it completes investigations and prosecutions.
"We have asked Pakistan, and India has asked Pakistan, to cooperate fully in trying to bring to justice those who are responsible for the Mumbai attacks. So this would certainly be a very positive step.
I don't have much more in the way of detail with regard to the arrest, but Pakistan has committed that it would do everything in its power to bring people to justice who may have committed these atrocities who have been within their borders,” says State Department spokesperson Robert Wood.
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