'Purohit hired men to execute Samjhauta attack'

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik has alleged that an Indian Army officer linked to the 2007 bombing of the trans-border Samjhauta Express train had hired Pakistan-based militants to carry out the attack.

Malik has for long been insinuating that the killing of Mumbai Anti-Terror Squad chief Hemant Karkare during the terrorist attacks on the city in November 2008 was in some way linked to his investigation into the role of Col S K Purohit in the bomb blasts in Malegaon in 2006.

During an interaction with journalists on the sidelines of an official function yesterday, Malik said: "Col Purohit was investigated by Karkare, who was killed in the Mumbai attacks (and this) clearly demonstrates that there were some Pakistan-based Islamists (involved in the attack on the Samjhauta Express).

"They (Islamist militants) were hired and used in the Samjhauta Express (attack)," he alleged. Malik did not give further details or say on what basis he was making the allegation.

He claimed India had not responded to Pakistan's repeated requests for information on the probe into the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauta Express in which nearly 70 people, most of them Pakistanis, were killed.

"That's the dossier we have requested India to provide us and India is not providing us," Malik said, and challenged Indian authorities to prove there was no link between Purohit and the bombing of the train.