New Delhi: India on Friday handed over another dossier to Pakistan with new information on Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks against whom Islamabad says it has insufficient evidence to prosecute in court.
Official sources said the dossier was handed over at a meeting between Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and Pakistani High Commissioner Shahid Malik. The meeting was held at the request of the Pakistani envoy.
The new information pertains specifically to Saeed. Pakistan earlier said it does not have enough information from India to prosecute Saeed. This is the fifth dossier that India has handed over to Pakistan on the November 26-29, 2008, Mumbai carnage that claimed the lives of over 170 people, including 26 foreign nationals.
India gave its last dossier on Saeed on August 1, which included transcripts of conversations between the Mumbai attackers and their handlers in Pakistan. Addressing a press conference here August 1, Home Minister P Chidambaram said: "There is enough evidence to proceed against Saeed."
"The evidence provided in three dossiers is, in our view, sufficient to investigate role of Hafiz Saeed (in the Mumbai carnage)," the minister said. "The investigations in Pakistan will also throw up enough evidence."
Saeed, who was placed under house arrest in December last year after the UN proscribed the JuD in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, was released by the Lahore High Court in June, citing what it called "lack of evidence".
In July, Pakistan said it would not arrest Saeed till adequate proof was provided of his involvement in the Mumbai carnage.
But, at a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Sharm-el-Sheikh Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told him that "common consensus" was being evolved and that "action will have to be taken against him (Saeed)".
Two days before that, on July 14, Pakistan's Punjab provincial government had disassociated itself from the case against Saeed, saying the federal government had not furnished "solid evidence" to warrant his continued house arrest.
Earlier this month, the new US envoy to India, Timothy J Roemer, said that Pakistan should follow up the trial of suspects of the Mumbai terror attacks.
"People held in Pakistan in connection with the Mumbai attacks should be brought to justice," he told reporters Aug 12.
Roemer's remarks came in the wake of the Pakistan Supreme Court's decision to postpone indefinitely the petitions challenging Saeed's release, which virtually left him free. The court cited the lack of evidence against Saeed while announcing its decision.
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