Singh flayed for silence over West's Mumbai stand

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday questioned the Manmohan Singh government's silence on the US and Britain absolving Islamabad of involvement in the Mumbai carnage and accused it of doing a "u-turn" by accepting that the accused can be tried in Pakistan.

Indicating recent remarks by visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and US ambassador David Mulford, the main opposition party said these comments were "a dazzling blow to the Indian government's stand" on the complicity of Pakistan's state agencies in the Mumbai carnage.

Unfortunate

"It is indeed an unfortunate situation where we have a government, which is down on its knees, totally failing to react to these statements, BJP spokes-person Rajiv Pratap Rudy said.

"The complete failure of the UPA government to clearly rebuff the startling assertions by David Miliband gives weight to Pakistan's assertion that India has given proof and not evidence," the BJP spokesperson said.

Miliband said here on Tuesday: "I have said publicly that I do not believe that the attacks were directed by the Pakistani state and I think it's important to restate that."

The statement contradicted the Indian government's allegation on the involvement of Pakistani state agencies in the Mumbai attacks.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said last week the scale and sophistication of the Mumbai attacks showed they had support from Pakistan's official agencies. Islamabad blamed the attacks on "non-state actors".

The US also refused to back India's contention about the suspected role of Pakistani state agencies in the attacks.