Malik stirs fresh row: ‘Ansari source of Indian agency’

It has come to be known that they carried out a recce of the targets and shot films uninterrupted and without the notice of law-enforcement agencies. "If you put things together, there are three guys, one coming from the US, and he has that money, he has got credit cards, he has moved all over, he had created franchise, he had created a social circle. All these should have come to the attention of some agencies. Now the agencies failed. Both here and Pakistan. So, we have failed. Why? Because, there was no interaction between Pakistan and India," Malik said.

"So what I am emphasising is that if we had interaction at the intelligence level, at ministerial level, at the government level and diplomatic level, then there would have been opportunity to share such information. Maybe then we could have found about the travels and interactions of Abu Jundal and Headley. Maybe we could have stopped the attack from happening," Malik said.

On Ansari specifically, he added, "Put it another way, you become a source, then you become a double agent. While he is working, living in India, he might have met somebody and then these three individuals go to Pakistan..."

Telling India not to hide anything, Malik said: "I have to tell the truth to your country, to your people, so that we find a way forward. If you hide things, the things will continue to move in the same way and a time will come when we will not be able to handle and control (these things)."

According to a PTI report from Islamabad, on arrival back home from his visit to India, the Interior Minister said India had provided "insufficient information" against Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Mohammed Saeed.

Speaking to reporters at the airport in Rawalpindi, Malik said that the "greatest pressure" was exerted on him on the issue of Saeed, whom India accuses of masterminding the 26/11 attack. "I said the insufficient information you have given, which you call evidence, will not stand the test of our courts... I took a clear stand that India has given only information and not evidence against Hafiz Saeed."

... contd.

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