India has voiced concern at the tardy progress in the prosecution of the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks saying many persons who are the actual accused had not even been brought before the Pakistani
courts. Home Secretary R K Singh said this in a brief interaction with the media before going into the talks with his Pakistani counterpart in Islamabad on Thursday.
The two-day talks between the Home and Interior Secretaries of India and Pakistan are expected to focus on a relaxed visa regime and the prosecution of perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba. New Delhi had linked several serving and retired Pakistani military officials to the Mumbai attacks on the basis of evidence provided by Pakistani-American LeT operative David Headley.
The Indian delegation is led by Home Secretary R K Singh and the Pakistani team headed by Interior Secretary Khwaja Siddique Akbar. Ahead of the talks, Indian officials said the two sides had given the finishing touches to a new relaxed visa regime that will for the first time include group tourist visas, visas on arrival for senior citizens and children and year-long multiple-entry visas for businessmen. A pact is likely to be signed at the conclusion of the talks on Friday.
Last year talks between the two Home Secretaries were held in New Delhi in March.
AIR correspondent adds that seven Pakistani nationals, including LeT operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, have been indicted for planning, financing and facilitating the attacks that killed 166 people in November 2008. However, their trial in an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi is stalled for over a year due to various technical reasons.
The Indian side is also expected to renew the demand for action against LeT founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, for whom the US recently offered a 10 million-dollar bounty.
Islamabad has claimed that the evidence provided by New Delhi is not sufficient to take legal action against Saeed, who has led several massive rallies against the US and India in recent months.
