Malik bats for Indo-Pak information sharing

Pakistan Interior Minister Rahman Malik underlined the need for India and Pakistan to put in place a proper system of information sharing to combat the menace of terrorism jointly. Describing the recent meeting between the two sides as "excellent" and "a step forward" for relationship, Malik said he had assured his Indian counterpart P Chidambaram that his country will positively look into the requests for voice samples of Mumbai attacks' Lashkar-e-Tayiba handlers.

Advocating a pragmatic approach to prevent incidents like 26/11, Malik said: "We need to have a sytem in place so that we can share information if somebody is trying to use our side against India or anybody using India against Pakistan. We should work our way forward". He said the latest dossier of information provided by India recently has already been passed on by his office to investigators. "I have assured Mr Chidambaram we are going to look into and thoroughly with positivity (into the dossier) and as far as the voice samples are concerned we have no problem with that," he told CNN IBN.

Stating that incidents like the Mumbai attack should not happen, he also referred to "Hindu extremism" in India and the recent coming to light of acts involving such elements. "Why I am telling this is that

when terrorism started from... Swat, we had this same feeling that they are small groups, they cannot come to that extent. They one day... now they have become a monster," he said, referring to the rise of extremism in Pakistan. Asserting that Pakistan had taken action against terrorists and extremists, Malik sought to address the notion that his government had a different attitude towards Tehreek-e-Taliban and the groups that had targetted India. He said Pakistan has banned 29 organisations, including the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi as also Jaish-e-Mohammad, and also started derecognising them. 

Malik said his government had investigated and taken action even against Hafiz Saeed, but also said that courts have to be respected. On the meeting between the intelligence chiefs of India and Pakistan, Malik said the two countries should move to a "result-oriented approach" and "real time intelligence"sharing. "In any case they are sharing (information) through indirect ways. So let them share and whenever an officer is required in India let him go..." he said. Referring to investigation around Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Headley, Malik said: "We need to find out who was behind Headley's movement all across the globe. We have to see if there's any truth in what he is saying."