NEW DELHI: Ahead of the NSA-level talks with Pakistan, India is preparing a detailed dossier on the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast to counter Islamabad’s recent move comparing it to the 26/11 Mumbai carnage.
Sources in the government said that they were expecting Pakistan to rake up the issue as Pakistan Prime Minister’s Adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had mentioned the Samjhauta blast trial. Around 68 people, including Pakistani nationals were killed when a bomb went off in two carriages of the Samjhauta Express near Panipat on February 18, 2007.
Government sources mentioned that the dossier being prepared will focus on four major points to argue that Samjhauta cannot be compared to the Mumbai attacks.
“None of the accused in Samjhauta blast case came out of jail while in the case of 26/11 attacks, mastermind Hafiz Saeed and LeT operations chief Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi are roaming free. Secondly, in Samjhauta blast case there is no evidence to suggest that state actors were involved whereas overwhelming evidence against ISI officials were given to Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks,” government sources said.
India will also argue that Samjhauta blast was a terror act inside India while Mumbai attacks were a coordinated terror strike by terrorists and Pakistani state actors in India.
Meanwhile, the government has also prepared a dossier of 70 fugitives suspected to be sheltered by Pakistan. Sources said that around 20 new names have been added to the list since 2012 when India had handed over the most wanted list of 50 fugitives to Pakistan.
As far as most wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim is concerned, India will hand over a 20-page dossier on Dawood’s activities in Pakistan as well his residential addresses and phone numbers picked up by the intelligence agencies.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, who met Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday, is expected to hand over arrested Pakistani terrorist Naved’s interrogation report to Aziz during the talks. Naved had made disclosures related to his family and terror training camps being run by the LeT in Pakistan. The details relating to Hafiz Saeed’s visit to Markaz-e-Aksa along with some ISI officials and that on Lashkar camps in Garhi Habibullah will be part of the dossier India will hand over as evidence to prove that Pakistan remains a source for terrorists.