New Delhi, June 1 (IANS) India has not decided on being party to a lawsuit in the US against Pakistani spy agency ISI linking it to the 2008 Mumbai attack, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said Wednesday.
‘No decision has been taken’, Chidambaram told reporters here in reply to a question if India would be party to the petition in a Brooklyn court filed last year by relatives of two Jewish victims of the Mumbai attack.
The petitioners have alleged complicity of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha and his predecessor Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, saying they had helped the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror outfit to conduct the Nov 26-29, 2008 Mumbai carnage in which 166 people, including six Americans, were slaughtered.
Pakistan is trying to block the lawsuit on the grounds that it will pour ‘gasoline on the fire’ of its relations with India.
To another query at his monthly press conference, Chidambaram said much of the Mumbai attack revelations by LeT operative David Coleman Headley in a Chicago court were known to India.
‘Except for one or two pieces of information, the rest had been brought to my notice by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) team which had interrogated Headley,’ Chidambaram said.
He said the government was waiting for the trial of Headley’s accomplice, Tahawwur Rana, to be over. ‘We cannot have a running commentary on it,’ he said.
Headley, testifying in a high-stakes terrorism trial in connection with the Mumbai attack has told the court in Chicago that the ISI was involved in the strike. He alleged that Major Iqbal, who he said was his ISI handler, had trained, directed and funded him for planning the Mumbai mayhem.
