India to give Pakistan train bombings evidence

India will give Islamabad evidence that Pakistan’s spy agency planned the deadly July 11 Mumbai train bombings, India’s top diplomat said today.

“This (evidence) is something that we will certainly take up with the government of Pakistan,” said India’s new foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon.

Indian police alleged a day earlier that Pakistan’s Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence, or ISI, was behind the bombings that killed more than 200 people in Mumbai, India’s economic and entertainment centre.

Pakistan immediately denied the claims and demanded evidence.

The two neighbouring countries, both nuclear-armed, are bitter rivals who have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947. They have been engaged in a fitful peace process in recent years.

“We will judge them (Pakistan) not by their verbal actions, but what they actually do,” said Menon, whose previous position was India’s ambassador to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, India’s main Hindu nationalist opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, called on the government to sever ties with Islamabad.

Pakistan’s ambassador to India “should be immediately summoned and categorically told that India will reconsider continuation of diplomatic relations with Pakistan,” said BJP president Rajnath Singh.

At a news conference on Saturday to announce the end of the probe into the bombings, Mumbai Police Commissioner AN Roy said the intensive investigation, which included questioning suspects drugged with “truth serum,” revealed Pakistan’s role.

“The conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan,” Roy said. “The terror plot was ISI-sponsored and executed by Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operatives with help from the Students’ Islamic Movement of India.”

Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, or Army of the Pure, is a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group. The Students’ Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, is banned.

Roy said 15 people, 11 of them Pakistanis, had so far been arrested in the investigation. Three Indian suspects are still on the run and a Pakistani bomber was killed in the blasts, he said.

Roy claimed that Pakistani intelligence agents began planning the attacks in March and later provided funding and training for the bombers in Pakistan’s Bahawalpur town, a centre of militant Muslim activity.

Pakistan dismissed the accusations.

“We reject this allegation, and demand that India should provide us any evidence, if they have,” said Tariq Azim, minister of state for information.

Top Indian government officials made no immediate comments.

The July 11 attack was India’s deadliest in years.

Seven bombs ripped through a series of suburban commuter trains during the evening rush hour in Mumbai, killing at least 207 people and injuring 700 more.