New Delhi, Aug 1 - India maintained Saturday it had given enough evidence to Pakistan to prosecute Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, and it was now for Islamabad to proceed against him. The home ministry has also prepared a fresh dossier on the attack, which will soon be given to Pakistan.
'There is enough evidence to proceed against Saeed,' Home Minister P. Chidambaram said at a press conference here to detail the activities of his ministry during July.
'The evidence provided in three dossiers is, in our view, sufficient to investigate role of Hafiz Saeed (in the Mumbai carnage),' the minister said, adding: 'The investigations in Pakistan will also throw up enough evidence.'
Chidambaram also said his ministry had formulated its latest response to the queries submitted by Pakistan on India's third dossier on the Mumbai attacks.
'Yesterday (Friday), we finalised our response. A seven page response with attachments has been handed over to the ministry of external affairs to be transmitted to Pakistan. I believe this will be done shortly,' the home minister added.
Saeed, who had been placed under house arrest in December after the UN proscribed the JuD in the wake of the Nov 26-29, 2008 Mumbai attacks, was released by the Lahore High Court in June citing lack of evidence.
On July 28, a defiant Pakistan said it would not arrest Saeed till adequate proof was provided of his involvement in the Mumbai carnage.
'We cannot arrest him till adequate proof is provided. There is no proof,' Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik told a private TV news channel in an interview.
The latest flip-flop came 12 days after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said July 16 his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani had informed him that 'common consensus' was being evolved and that 'action will have to be taken against him (Saeed)'.
Two days before that, on July 14, Pakistan's Punjab provincial government had disassociated itself from the case against Saeed, saying the federal government had not furnished 'solid evidence' to warrant his continued house arrest.