Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has rejected India’s demand to hand over Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Mohd Sayeed and other fugitives in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, adding that he doubted whether the one terrorist arrested was a Pakistani national.Denying Pakistan’s involvement in the attacks, Zardari said the terror strikes were executed by “Stateless actors” who wanted to hold the “entire world hostage”. He was speaking on CNN’s Larry King Live, telecast on Tuesday night.Two days after New Delhi’s demarche (protest note) demanding the handing over of 20 fugitives, Zardari made known Pakistan’s reluctance to part with them. “If we had proof, we would try them in our courts. We would try them in our land and we would sentence them,” he said.India’s list of 20 is believed to include underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar. India is awaiting Pakistan’s response before deciding on the options it could exercise. Zardari said he also doubted India’s claim that the sole surviving gunman, who was captured by Indian security forces, was a Pakistani national. “We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt that he’s a Pakistani,” he said. “They (the terrorists) are Stateless actors who have been operating throughout the region. They include gunmen and the planners and are holding the entire world hostage. The State of Pakistan is not responsible. Even the White House and CIA have said so,” the President said.He ruled out the possibility of Pakistan and India going to war, saying “democracies do not go to war”. The three wars India and Pakistan have fought took place during dictatorships in Pakistan, he said.Zardari called for a joint investigation to look into the problem in the larger context. “The threat is in the region and just not to Bombay or to India. The threat (also is) to the State of Pakistan. There’s a threat to Afghanistan, It’s a threat throughout region. So that would be counterproductive,” he added.“I’m a victim. The state of Pakistan is a victim. We are the victims of this war, and I am sorry for the Indians, and I feel sorry for them. I’ve seen this pain. I feel this pain every time I see my children. I can see it in their eyes. This pain lives with me because of my wife and what we are going through in Pakistan,” he said.Asked whether the Lashkar was involved in the attacks, he replied that it is a banned organisation around the world. “If indeed they are involved, we would not know.”These are the people who operate outside the system like the Al-Qaeda, he said, and Pakistan has offered full cooperation to India in investigating the incident. Asked if the al-Qaeda may be involved, Zardari said: “We cannot rule anything out at the moment.” Zardari promised to take action if India produced evidence of complicity of any Pakistani group, and said they were looking into the allegations “thrown at us from across the border”. Defending Pakistan’s intelligence agencies which have been accused of providing support to the militants, Zardari said in the past, lots of mistakes have been made, but the present government does not support any such action.“I can assure the world from my side, from my Army’s side, from my parliament’s side and the people of Pakistan that we are not helping any such activity,” he added. Asked whether it would become tough for him if Indians vehemently call for a crackdown on militants, Zardari said politics has never been easy in a place like Pakistan and it was “not easy to inherit from a dictator”.
