Days before Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s New Delhi visit, Union Home Minister SushilKumar Shinde on Friday mounted a scathing attack on Pakistan for the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, terming the terror incident the result of the neighbour’s envy towards India’s economic progress.
As many as 13 bomb explosions shook the business capital of the country on March 12, 1993 killing over 250 people. The mastermind of the serial blasts, Dawood Ibrahim, is sheltered by Pakistan’s ISI and lives in a safe house in Karachi.
Addressing a gathering on a TV Today channel’s special programme, Shinde vowed to bring back the terrorists holed up in Pakistan to face trial in India.
Rehman Malik will cross the border on December 14 to operationalise the new liberal visa regime and is expected to hold talks with Shinde on December 16.
“We launched the economic reforms in 1991 and subsequently India had achieved rapid economic progress. But a neighbour became envious of our development. Soon there were 13 blasts in Mumbai in 1993,” Shinde said adding that Dawood Ibrahim would be brought back to India and punished for the crime.
In his address, Shinde also hinted on the agenda of the upcoming talks with his Pak counterpart on December 16. Shinde said India is working with some international organisations to bring the terrorists living in safe havens.
Raising the issue of economic terrorism, he maintained that circulation of fake currency notes is the nefarious design of a neighbouring country to destroy India’s economy. Apart from fake currency, safe haven for terrorists and 26/11 Mumbai attacks, New Delhi is also expected to raise the issue of infiltration, continuous ceasefire violation by Pakistan and the menace of drug smuggling from across the border.