Islamabad: Pakistan will not hand over to India any of the suspects in the Mumbai terror attacks but would try them under its own laws, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Tuesday.

“The arrests are being made for our own investigations. Even if allegations are proved against any suspect, he will not be handed over to India,” Qureshi said in Multan, commenting on the arrest of Zakiur Rehman Lakhwi, commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group that India has blamed for the Mumbai attacks.

“We will proceed against those arrested under Pakistani laws,” Qureshi added.

According to reports, Lakhwi was among the at least 15 people detained in the last two days after raids on a camp run by the banned LeT in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Following the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani security forces also sealed a camp of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JD), as the LeT is widely believed to have been renamed after it was proscribed, in the Shawai Nullah neighbourhood of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

Another senior Pakistani government official said there was no chance of handing over Lakhwi to India.

“Yes, he was arrested and would be tried if India provides evidence against him,” the official said.
Also on Tuesday, the JD said that none of their offices in Pakistan had been raided.

“We are working under Pakistani laws and have never indulged in any terrorist or unlawful activities,” JD spokesperson Abdullah Muntizar told IANS, commenting on reports about countrywide raids on LeT offices and camps.

He said he had no information about any arrests. “What I know is what has appeared in media,” Muntizar said, adding that the media was confusing the LeT with the JD.

According to him, military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas had made it clear that the operation was against outlawed organisations whereas the JD was registered “and working under the law for promotion of education and welfare work”.

In a statement issued late Monday, the military spokesperson said in a statement that an operation to target militant organisations had started in the wake of the attacks in Mumbai.

“The military confirms an operation of law enforcement is underway,” it said, adding that there had been arrests and investigations were underway.

In 2002, the LeT, the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and three other organisations were banned by the government after US pressure to close their offices in Pakistan.

On Monday, Pakistani authorities placed restrictions on the movement of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, who New Delhi accuses of masterminding the Dec 1999 hijack of an Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar.

India has blamed organisations based in Pakistan for last month’s devastating assault on its financial capital, and there has been growing pressure on the government here to act against groups suspected of being involved.

On Monday, Pakistan also rejected India’s demand to extradite three fugitives — Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon and Maulana Masood Azhar – and urged it to share evidence proving that elements from this country territory had carried out the recent attacks in Mumbai. While Dawood Ibrahim and Memon are Indian citizens, Azhar is a Pakistani.

A report in Dawn daily said that this was communicated to India in a demarche from Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir to Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal in response to New Delhi’s second demarche that had listed actions it wanted Islamabad to take.

The paper said that India had been told that of the three fugitives, Pakistan didn’t know the whereabouts of Dawood Ibrahim and Memon — men who allegedly masterminded the devastating Mumbai bombings in 1993.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service

MUMBAI: A Jet Airways’ cabin crew member became a victim of hate speech when a passenger enquired about her religion and then unleashed a tirade on how members of her community were responsible for the Mumbai terror attack. No complaint was filed against the passenger. The incident took place on board the Jet Airways Aurangabad-Mumbai flight 9W-114 on Sunday. “There were about 40 to 50 passengers on board the Boeing 737 and everything was fine till this passenger asked the cabin crew her name when she was serving him,’’ said a passenger, requesting not to be named. “We heard him ask and found it strange since flight attendants have name tags on their uniform.’’ The next question was: Are you Muslim? “She said yes, and this man, who was about 35-years-old , started shouting at her,’’ he recalled. “The man said, ‘‘ Why the bloody hell are you Muslims doing this to our country?’’ “We could see she was stunned, but she calmly replied, ‘Sir, this is my country too.’ He shot back, ‘I don’t think so, because people from your community are behind these attacks .’ She was on the verge of tears, but said bravely, ‘Sorry Sir, they don’t belong to India . They are not Indians.’ After that she quietly moved away, avoiding further conversation. We could see that she did not go towards the cockpit to complain to the commander about it. It was very embarrassing for the rest of us. We felt like apologising to her, but were too taken aback by the incident,’’ the passenger recounted.

Who could be India’s Obama who could unite the country and march the nation forward at a traumatic time? US business magazine Forbes feels it is industry captain Ratan Tata.

“While it (India) has the sympathy of the world (after the recent attacks), India could have an Obama moment’one in which a leader, whose personal history epitomises the country’s principles, marches forward to unite the country during its very moment of trauma. India has a chance now to get it right, but it needs a strong, credible leader to step up,” Forbes said in a report.

“As an American, I don’t get a vote in India, but if I did, mine would go to Ratan Tata,” added the report written by Forbes magazine’ Senior Editor (Asia) Robyn Meredith.

“He is not a politician, but he is the country’s most respected business leader. His Tata Group owns the Taj hotel that was just attacked, but his family is just as connected to India’s proud history as its shell-shocked present,” Meredith wrote in a weekly column published online.

Posing the question whether should there be not a way to involve Tata at the highest level in the government, the report noted that “a fractured India” would immensely benefit from his acumen and constructive patriotism.

Meredith pointed out, “Should there not be a way to involve him in government at the highest level? A fractured India would benefit immeasurably from his acumen, his managerial skills, and his very obvious’but always constructive’patriotism.”

Wondering what if the nation leapfrogged America’s approach, the magazine pointed out that the political leap could be as successful as the country’s technology.

Teacher,Leah Walsh Found 2 Days After Being Reported Missing, Husband Charged With Murder.

NORTH HILLS, N.Y. (CBS) ― Police have positively identified the body of the woman found in a wooded area in Long Island as Leah Walsh, the teacher reported missing on Monday morning, and her husband has been charged with murder.

Nassau County Police Lt. Kevin Smith says a worker at the North Hills Country Club found Walsh’s body around 8 a.m. Wednesday. It’s believed the body had been there for more than 24 hours.

The discovery is about 13 miles from where Walsh’s car was found abandoned with a flat tire early Monday. The 29-year-old special education teacher was reported missing after failing to arrive at her Glen Cove school.

Her car was found black Ford Focus was found with a flat tire on the northbound shoulder of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway near Bethpage. — coincidentally by her father, a bus driver who happened to be on the highway later Monday morning as he drove to work. He called his daughter’s husband, who then called 911, according to police. . Her purse was found in a ditch nearby.

CBS 2 HD’s Jay Dow spoke to Walsh’s distressed husband, Bill, who pleaded for his wife’s safe return.”I don’t know what to do. I just keep talking to the cops. I keep asking questions. I wish I could give them more. I don’t know where to look. I don’t know what to do. You can have my cars. You can have everything,I just want my wife back. I miss her more than anything,” said Walsh.

A police source said Leah texted her husband the morning she went missing, and that her cell phone has not been found.

William – who was questioned for hours by cops on Tuesday – had told reporters early today morning that he was going to spend the day putting up fliers to help find his wife.

Chopper 2 HD was over the scene Wednesday morning as cars were backed up for miles on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway near Bethpage, where the missing teacher allegedly last contacted her husband after her car suffered the flat tire.

Even with the discovery, there are still more questions than answers about the woman’s disappearance.

Bill Walsh left the 8th precinct station house in Levittown after a seven-hour routine police interview Tuesday afternoon. “He’s a mess, his wife is missing. How else could you be? It’s tearing our family apart,” her brother-in-law Tommy Walsh said.

The two had been married for just three years. “She was very close to her mother, a wonderful child, played with the kids, great gal. I’m just shocked,” said former neighbor Stanley Bralower.

“Praying for the best. That’s all you can do at this point. Nobody knows anything, there are no answers,” said Tommy.

The New York Daily News reported that Lucas Bean, a close friend of Leah Walsh who attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst with Leah Walsh, said she and her husband had a huge blowout after he went to Atlantic City,Saturday.

Bean said Walsh sent him a text message on Saturday. “She was telling me that things are not going to work out with her and her husband, and she had to tell me something very important, but she needed to wait till she got out of the car with him,” he said, according to the Daily News.

She apparently had not wanted to speak in front of her husband.

“She told me the marriage is over. [She said] ‘I’ll tell you why when I talk to you. It’s something really, really bad, “

“[She said] she was definitely getting a divorce, there was no way she could stay with him after what he’d done.”

“I never found out what it was [about],” Bean said.

Bean, , said she and her husband had a huge blowout after he went to Atlantic City.

The well-liked teacher had just received her master’s degree from Molloy College in Rockville Centre and was teaching autistic children.

“I never found out what it was [about],” Bean said.

CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez contributed to this report.