India: Pakistan must act over Mumbia attacks
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- India on Monday demanded Pakistan take "strong action" on those behind last week's massacre in Mumbai, raising diplomatic tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Onlookers in Mumbai read messages posted outside Oberoi hotel, the site of one of the terror attacks.
But Pakistan's prime minister has dismissed accusations his country played a role, saying the claims were made "out of anger."
India's foreign ministry said it had summoned Islamabad's chief envoy to New Delhi to reiterate claims that elements from Pakistan carried out the attacks that left 179 dead and 300 injured.
India's Ministry of External Affairs told Pakistan's High Commissioner Shahid Malik that it expects "strong action" against the those behind the siege.
Pakistani authorities say Islamabad has not received any evidence that militants from within its borders carried out Wednesday's coordinated attacks in India's financial capital.
"Now that the dust has settled down, I hope they will be considering all such things which they have said in the past," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told CNN on Monday. Watch Gilani say Pakistan will defuse tensions »
Also Monday, India's top envoy in Islamabad was summoned by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.
Pakistan's foreign secretary met with the diplomat and "refuted the unsubstantiated allegations by the Indian media of Pakistan's complicity in the Mumbai incident," a ministry spokesman said.
The attacks have damaged India's already strained relationship with Pakistan. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is heading to New Delhi on Wednesday to help quell the tensions between two key U.S. allies. Watch how attacks could damage relations »
"It is extremely important that there be the highest levels of cooperation between Pakistan and India at this point, and that means all institutions," Rice said Monday as she headed to London.
Indian officials said the only surviving suspected attacker is in custody and has told police that he is Pakistani. Sources told CNN's partner network in India, CNN-IBN, that the suspect said he was trained by Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a Pakistan-based terror group allied with al Qaeda.
Lashkar-e-Tayyiba has denied any role in the attacks, and said it has no links to the Deccan Mujahideen, the unknown group that claimed responsibility for the massacre.
Pakistan and India have fought three major wars since independence in 1947, and conducted tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests in 1998. The Indian government is reportedly considering suspending the five-year-old cease-fire with Pakistan and perhaps even ending the dialogue process with the country.
Gilani vowed "full cooperation" with Indian investigators and predicted that the incident would not lead to an escalation of tensions between the nuclear neighbors.
"With India, we had good relations, but I feel sorry that this incident naturally disturbed the people of India for which we are very sympathetic," Gilani said.
"Pakistan will act very responsibly, and we have talked to all our friends that they should use their good offices to defuse the situation."
He hinted that the recent resignations by Indian officials amounted to an admission of an intelligence failure.
"(Tensions) will not escalate because some responsible people have owned the responsibility of intelligence failure," Gilani told CNN.
Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil announced his resignation Sunday amid criticism of the response to the attacks. Patil, whose ministry oversees internal security, had been accused of failing to improve intelligence before the attacks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh immediately tapped India's finance minister to take over the post.
The head of the Indian state Maharashtra -- which includes Mumbai -- said Monday that he would also step down after his deputy resigned. The chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, said he would leave it up to his ruling Congress party to decide whether to accept his resignation.
Mumbai police lowered the casualty toll from Wednesday's attacks and the sieges that followed to 179 dead and about 300 wounded. That does not include the nine gunmen killed in three days of battles with police and the Indian military, police said Monday.
At least 28 foreigners were among the victims, including six Americans and six Israelis.
A Mumbai police official said Monday that no one has come to claim the bodies of the nine attackers, which are lying in the city's morgue "as of now."
Pakistan and India have fought three major wars since independence in 1947, and conducted tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests in 1998. The Indian government is reportedly considering suspending the five-year-old cease-fire with Pakistan and perhaps even ending the dialogue process with the country.
The head of Pakistan's Interior Ministry Rehman Malik said India has not provided any evidence linking the attacks to Pakistan. Malik vowed to "take action" if there is any proof that the attack was launched from Pakistani soil.
Pakistan's civilian government, which took office earlier this year, continues to battle Islamic extremists along the rugged border with Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO troops have been fighting al Qaeda and Taliban militants since al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Haqqani said the militants want India and Pakistan to remain "at each other's throats so they can flourish," but he said his government has seen no sign of an Indian buildup along the border.
Interpol had said it would send a delegation to India to aid in the investigation. But on Sunday, the international law enforcement agency was still waiting official permission into the country, a spokesman said.
The targets of the attacks included luxury hotels packed with foreign tourists. The 105-year-old Taj Mahal hotel was the site of the attackers' final stand, as gunmen held hostages and refused to leave the facility.
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