India turned up the heat further on Pakistan today, asking it to follow up on its promises with “action”, even as it ruled out military action for the moment. “We expect that good sense will prevail and we expect the assurances which are coming (from Pakistan) will translate into action. Because assurances are coming from the established leadership of that country, we expect conducive atmosphere will prevail to ensure the fulfilment of these assurances,” External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Srinagar.In New Delhi, Defence Minister A K Antony said, “We are not planning any military action but at the same time unless Pakistan takes actions against those terrorists who are from their soil and also against all those who are behind the Mumbai terrorist attack, things will not be normal.”In Kochi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said India was united in its resolve to fight terrorism to the end. “Let nobody have any doubt about the determination of the Indian nation and the Indian National Congress to defeat the forces of terrorism.The Congress will deal with such forces in a befitting manner,” she said. “New laws to deal with terrorism more effectively are on the anvil.” In Islamabad, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani turned down British premier Gordon Brown’s request for access to terror suspects detained in Pakistan. “If there are any proofs, these persons will be prosecuted under the law of Pakistan,” Gilani’s office said. Gilani’s rejection came on a day Brown repeated his call for Pakistan to act against terrorists. “We (Britain) have offered our support to Pakistan, but (it) must act rapidly and decisively against terror networks based on its soil,” Brown told the British Parliament.In an interview to Newsweek, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari acknowledged that non-state actors operating from Pakistan were “its responsibility”. “Yes, definitely. I do not shrug away from that position. Anybody from my soil is my responsibility,” he said when asked to comment on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s statement that “non-state” actors on Pakistan’s soil were still its responsibility.A report in the Pakistani media, however, said most operatives of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Punjab were “untraceable”, and that only one of the outfit’s chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed’s aides had been detained in Rawalpindi.
