Apprehensive of Reprisals, Pakistanis Deny a Role - New York Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Apprehensive about potential reprisals by India over the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the Pakistani government insisted Saturday that it had not been involved. It pledged to take action against Pakistan-based militants if they were found to be implicated.

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“Our hands are clean,” the Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said at a news conference. “Any entity or group involved in the ghastly act, the Pakistan government will proceed against it.” The government called a crisis cabinet meeting on Saturday, a day after Indian officials suggested that a militant group with Pakistani ties, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for the attacks. Similar accusations after an attack on the Indian Parliament by another group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, brought the two governments to the brink of war in 2002. But while the civilian leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari , called for calm on Saturday, Pakistani security officials warned that they were preparing to move troops toward the border if need be. The security officials, speaking at a press briefing in which the ground rules prohibited identifying them by name, said that if the situation worsened, troops stationed in western Pakistan could be moved within 72 hours. “We’re ready for any contingency,” one security official said.

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