(AKI/DAWN) - Pakistan has bowed to international pressure and arrested at 124 militants suspected of involvement in the deadly terrorist attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai last November, including several of their leaders and officials.The government on Thursday said it had closed five training camps and 20 offices belonging to banned charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the outlawed Kashmiri separatist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba. It also announced it had banned their seven publications and blocked all their websites.
India holds LeT responsible for the Mumbai attacks and Jamaat-ud-Dawa is widely believed to be a LeT front organisation.
Addressing a news conference, the Pakistani prime minister's adviser on interior affairs, Rehman Malik, assured India that Pakistan would do its utmost to bring the people involved in the Mumbai attacks to justice. Unveiling details of a massive crackdown, Malik said that training camps had been closed down in Punjab and in Azad Kashmir.
Assuring India that sincere efforts were being made to bring to justice all the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks, Malik urged New Delhi to provide Pakistani investigators with access to the scenes of the attacks and to jointly investigate the incident so that all those involved could be brought to justice.
He announced the formation of a special investigation team headed by an additional director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to examine, "without any prejudice", all aspects of the Mumbai attacks and the information provided by India. The team will include two officers with counter-terrorism experience.
"Information has been provided by India and we have formed an investigation team to reach the culprits," he said.
Malik said the members of the banned organisations who had been detained included their founder Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, LeT 'operations commander' Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Mufti Abdur Rehman, Col (retd) Nazir Ahmed and Ameer Hamza.
"We have arrested a total of 124 mid-level and top leaders of Jamaat-ud-Dawa in response to a UN resolution - 69 from Punjab, 21 from Sindh, eight from Balochistan and 25 from the NorthWest Frontier Province," he said. "We have blocked six websites associated with the organisation and closed down its five relief camps," he added.
He said 20 offices, 87 schools, two libraries, seven seminaries and a handful of other organisations and websites linked to Jamaat-ud-Dawa had also been shut. The publications banned are Mujalatud Dawa, Zarb-i-Taiba, Voice of Islam, Nanhay Mujahid, Ghazwa and Al Rabta.
Malik did not say whether any legal proceedings had been begun against those detained in the crackdown.
However, sources told Dawn newspaper that the government was considering trying of at least three leaders of the banned groups wanted by India.
Rehman urged India to allow Pakistani investigation officials to visit the country. "India should wait for the results of the investigation. It will reveal all hidden truths. Pakistan and India need to sit together against their common enemy - terrorists," he said.
"We have to prove to the world that India and Pakistan stand together against terrorists," he said.
He reiterated that Pakistan had nothing to do with the attacks. "We condemned the incident on all platforms. Pakistan is also suffering at the hands of militants and that is worrying us."
Responding to a question, he said a joint investigation would "bring quick results".
He said India had handed over 19 pages of information which Pakistan is evaluating as evidence.
Malik ruled out handing over any Pakistani suspect to India. He said Pakistani laws allowed for prosecution of citizens who might have committed crimes elsewhere. He said results of the investigation being conducted by the FIA would be made public and nothing would be concealed.