External Affairs Minister S M Krishna arrived on Wednesday in Islamabad with a candid message to Pakistan that time has come for it to act against those involved in terror against India, particularly on the basis of revelations of Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley.
Ahead of tomorrow's talks with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi, soft-spoken Krishna minced no no words about India's expectations of "some movement" from Islamabad on the issue of terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
"I think time has come when such overwhelming evidence of irrefutable nature, if presented to any government, that government will have to act," he told reporters shortly before an informal dinner meeting with Qureshi.
Refusing to pre-judge the outcome of his parleys, Krishna said that he would talk to Qureshi about "various concerns based on Headley's revelations" and other evidence gathered by India itself over a period of time.
Pakistan, he emphasised, cannot find fault with the interrogation of Headley as it was also done by the US' FBI.
Krishna's focus on Headley assumes significance in the backdrop of comments attributed to Indian Home Secretary G K Pillai that evidence based on his interrogation showed that ISI and Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist Hafeez Saeed played "a much more significant role" in Mumbai terror attacks than was thought earlier.
The External Affairs Minister also made it clear that anti-India tirade by Hafeez Saeed and other Jihadi leaders would not not "smoothen" Indo-Pak ties. Saeed has been consistently making speeches to provoke the people of Pakistan against India, he said.
Answering a question on Qureshi's remark that he would raise the issue of alleged human rights violation in Jammu and Kashmir, Krishna said that it was an internal issue and "we don't have to answer any other country". PTI
