INDIAN HOME MINISTER CHIDABARAM ON INVESTIGATION OF MUMBAI ATTACKS

S E C R E T NEW DELHI 003268



SIPDIS



FOR THE SECRETARY FROM AMBASSADOR MULFORD



E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2018

TAGS: PREL, PTER, CJAN, PK, IN

SUBJECT: INDIAN HOME MINISTER CHIDABARAM ON INVESTIGATION

OF MUMBAI ATTACKS



REF: NEW DELHI 3267 AND PREVIOUS



Classified By: Ambassador David C. Mulford. Reasons: 1.4(B, D).



1. (S) Summary: The Ambassador in a December 31 meeting

reiterated to Indian Home Minister Chidambaram that the

investigation of the Mumbai attacks could be furthered if

India concurred in sharing the information obtained by the

FBI with Pakistan. While Chidambaram did not indicate

whether the Indian government had yet decided whether and how

much information from the investigations could be shared with

Pakistan and other countries, he said India would take

another look at how serious Pakistani intentions were in

investigating the Mumbai attacks if they provided the FBI

with access to detained Mumbai attacker Muhammad Ajmal's

father or/or to the Pakistani dealer of the outboard motor

used in the attacks. End Summary.



No Decision On Sharing Information

--------------



2. (S) After the Ambassador reiterated his message about

the usefulness to the investigation of sharing information,

Chidambaram noted that Pakistan may be "opening the door a

little" regarding the involvement of Pakistani elements in

the Mumbai terror attacks. He pointed to press reports

quoting GOP National Security Advisor Durrani as not ruling

out that detained attacker Muhammad Ajmal Amir Kasab could be

Pakistani and a report in today's Wall Street Journal citing

unnamed Pakistani security officials saying that

Lashkar-e-Taiba was involved in the attacks. Minister

Chidambaram did not acknowledge whether the Cabinet had yet

decided on whether and how India would share investigatory

information with Pakistan or other countries. (Note: In

December 31 reftel, Foreign Secretary Menon indicated that a

decision would be made today on this matter. End Note.)



How Serious is Pakistan?

--------------



3. (S) Without explicitly stating there was a condition on

information exchange, Chidambaram indicated that one sign of

how serious Pakistan was about investigating the attacks

would be whether GOP authorities "let your people talk" to

Kasab's father or/or whether they allowed access to the

dealer of the Yamaha outboard motor recovered from a boat

used by the attackers. Chidambaram noted that the GOI and

the U.S. knew the serial number of the motor and knew the

name of the dealer in Pakistan who had imported the motor

from Japan. He said that if this type of access was provided

by the GOP ("getting your foot in the door"),then India was

confident that the U.S. would be able to take the

investigation forward.



Pakistan and Bangladesh Face a Problem

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4. (C) Chidambaram acknowledged that Pakistan's civilian

leadership faced a serious problem in moving forward against

Islamist forces, but pointed to the election results in Jammu

and Kashmir and Bangladesh as indicative of the rejection of

terrorist ideologies by the South Asian public. He thought

that Sheikh Hasina had grown as a leader after her hard

experience of the last several years and understood that this

was her last chance to point Bangladesh in the right

direction. He noted that India had heard through back

channels before the election that Hasina was committed to

working with India to stamp out terrorists. Chidambaram

noted that there were strong forces in Bangladesh -- the Army

and intelligence services -- which would make it difficult to

improve relations in other spheres, but was confident that

Bangladesh would step up its counterterrorism cooperation.

MULFORD