Before Islamabad reports,its envoy says: Mumbai plot not planned in Pak

Hassan said Pakistan hoped other countries would accept the findings. “We are not doing any whitewashing business. We believe in going about facts. Our findings will be acceptable… They (the investigators) categorically informed me that (the) UK was not involved. Pak (Pakistan) was not involved. Its territories were not used for planning this operation,” Hassan said.

In New Delhi,External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee,asked about Hassan’s remarks,said: “We have not received any information from Pakistani authorities through proper channels. This is not the way a government can respond.”

In Islamabad,Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters that Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Shahid Malik had met Home Minister P Chidambaram and updated him on developments regarding the investigation.

“The Federal Investigation Agency of the Interior Ministry of Pakistan has completed the preliminary investigation and sent (its report) to the Law Department,” Qureshi said,adding that the report,after a review,would be received by the Foreign Ministry and then shared with India and the international community.

Though New Delhi “hopes” that Islamabad will conduct a thorough probe,sources here said they will be “amazed” if Pakistan comes clean on the Mumbai attacks. “Because if they choose to do so,they will have to say what we have been saying that the ISI was involved in the terror attack,” the sources said.

In the face of denials by Islamabad,India plans to step up pressure on Islamabad by adopting a three-pronged strategy — push for a comprehensive convention on counter-terrorism at the United Nations,ask for inclusion of names of individuals and entities under the UN terror list by the committee on counter-terrorism and highlight in the international fora the extent of the Pakistani involvement in the attacks.

New Delhi is not too enthused about approaching the UN Security Council for sanctions on the apparatus behind the Mumbai attack. Approaching UNSC with a Mumbai-specific complaint,sources said,and asking it to invoke Chapter 7 for sanctions against persons responsible for the attacks is a “purely political process”.

Sources cited past Indian experience,including the Kashmir issue in 1947 and the Bangladesh issue in 1971,to point out that UNSC intervention in the past had “very little to do with the merits of the case… council members adopt a position that suits them,not on the basis of what they know.”

Going by what it has seen so far,New Delhi,sources said,is “very happy” with the Obama administration. India was hoping to welcome Richard Holbrooke,US special envoy on Pakistan-Afghanistan,when he visits the region. Holbrooke,no stranger to the sub-continent,visited India thrice last year. New Delhi,sources said,will press for economic action against Pakistan in terms of military aid when he comes here.