India Pakistan Wrap - WRAP Gilani reax, India wants militants handed over, Pakistan FM
NAME: IND PAKWRAP 20081202I
TAPE: EF08/1212
IN_TIME: 11:25:26:14
DURATION: 00:03:32:13
SOURCES: AP/TV Today/PTV
DATELINE: Various - 2 Dec 2008/ File
RESTRICTIONS: Part India/ Part Pakistan
SHOTLIST
Mumbai - November 29, 2008
TV Today - No Access India
1. Various of a section of the Taj Mahal hotel on fire; smoke coming out
New Delhi - December 2, 2008
TV Today - No Access India
2. SOUNDBITE: (English) Pranab Mukherjee, Indian Foreign minister:
"Now we have, in our demarche, asked the handover, arrest and handover of those persons who are settled in Pakistan, who are guilty of Indian law. Therefore there is a list of about 20 persons, lists are sometimes altered and this exercise is going on as we have renewed it on our demarche and we will await the response from Pakistan."
New Delhi - November 26, 2008
AP Television
3. Various of Mukherjee and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi posing for pictures and shaking hands
Islamabad - 2 December 2008
PTV - No access Pakistan
4. SOUNDBITE: (Urdu) Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Pakistani Foreign Minister:
"The government of Pakistan has offered a joint investigating mechanism and joint commission to India so that we are ready to collectively reach the bottom of this issue and are ready to compose such a team which can help you. Pakistan wants good relations with India. Our composite dialogue was progressing well, and we understand that it is in the interest of both of our countries to keep this bilateral engagement constructive and continue it."
Islamabad - 2 December 2008
AP Television
5. Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Prime Minister of Pakistan, and Nawaz Sharif, Chairman of Pakistan Muslim League, and other participants at national security conference
6. Wide pan of meeting
7. SOUNDBITE: (Urdu) Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan Prime Minister:
"The leadership of Pakistan has united and is today debating this national issue and I believe that it would be a message for the whole world."
8. Wide of meeting
Mumbai - November 30, 2008
TV Today - No Access India
9. Various interiors of Taj Mahal hotel after the attacks
New Delhi - December 2, 2008
TV Today - No Access India
10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Admiral Suresh Mehta, Indian Navy Chief:
"The point is that it is a serious issue, a serious matter, the issue of security. There is shall we say a systemic failure and it needs to be taken stock of. So there is no doubt about it - the response from the government is going to be quite adequate."
Mumbai - November 30, 2008
TV Today - No Access India
11. Various of damage to glass door in Taj Mahal hotel after the attacks
New Delhi - December 2, 2008
AP Television
12. SOUNDBITE: (English) Sheela Bhat, editor of Rediff.com:
"India's response will be very strong, very firm - but I don't see the idea of war popular within the government because there is an elected government in Pakistan."
New Delhi - December 2, 2008
AP Television
13. Various of newspaper headlines about relations between India and Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks
STORYLINE:
Although public pressure has grown for India to take action after suspected Pakistani militants rampaged through Mumbai last week, the two nuclear-armed rivals say they are working to keep tensions in check.
Both sides seem to be hoping that US diplomacy - expected to intensify with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's arrival in India on Wednesday - will defuse the burgeoning crisis.
India has blamed the attacks, which killed 172 people and paralysed India's financial capital, on the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
It called on Islamabad to take strong action against those responsible and to hand over suspected militants believed living in Pakistan.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi offered on Tuesday to establish a joint investigation with India and said the government wanted to continue a painstaking peace process begun in 2004.
Meanwhile a list of about 20 people, including India's most-wanted man, was submitted to Pakistan's high commissioner to India on Monday night, said India's Foreign Minister, Pranab Mukherjee.
Among those sought by India is fugitive Dawood Ibrahim, a powerful gangster, the alleged mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai bombings.
Also included is Masood Azhar, a terror suspect freed from an Indian prison in exchange for the release of hostages aboard an Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked on Christmas Day 1999.
In the past, Pakistan has denied harbouring these men. However, Pakistan said it would consider India's request and respond after receiving the list.
India has already demanded Pakistan take "strong action" against those responsible for the attacks, and the US has pressured Islamabad to co-operate in the investigation.
The diplomatic wrangling comes as the government faces widespread accusations of security and intelligence failures in their handling of the attacks.
Indian officials continued to interrogate the only surviving attacker, Ajmal Qasab, who reportedly told police that he and the other nine gunmen had trained for months in camps in Pakistan operated by the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
India's foreign intelligence agency received information as recently as September that Pakistan-based militants were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, according to a government intelligence official familiar with the matter.
The information was then relayed to domestic security authorities, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorised to talk publicly about the details. But it's unclear what, if anything, the government did with the intelligence after that.
The famous Taj Mahal hotel, scene of much of the bloodshed, had tightened its security with metal detectors and other measures in the weeks before the attacks, after being warned of a possible threat.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has promised to strengthen maritime and air security and look into creating a new federal investigative agency, met on Tuesday with top security aides to review any government lapses.
Admiral Suresh Mehta, the Indian Navy Chief admitted on Tuesday that there had been a "systemic failure" but said that the response from the government "is going to be quite adequate."
Also on Tuesday a senior US official said that they had warned India before last week's brutal attacks that militants appeared to be plotting a mostly waterborne assault on Mumbai.
The official would not elaborate on the timing or details of the US warning to Indian counterparts.
The official confirmed, though, that Washington passed on information it had about a possible attacks, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of intelligence information.