*INDIA DEMANDS PAKISTAN HAND OVER SUSPECTS:* India has served Pakistan with a demand to hand over 20 of its most feared criminals and militants, seeking co-operation with its neighbor rather than military confrontation in response to last week's attacks on Mumbai. Pranab Mukherjee, India's foreign minister, said on Tuesday: We have asked for the arrest and handover of those persons who are settled in Pakistan and who are fugitives of Indian law.
COMMENTARY By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai? After all, if 10 young Indians from a splinter wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party traveled by boat to Pakistan, shot up two hotels in Karachi and the central train station, killed at least 173 people, and then, for good measure, murdered the imam and his wife at a Saudi-financed mosque while they were cradling their 2-year-old son purely because they were Sunni Muslims, where would we be today? The entire Muslim world would be aflame and in the streets. So what can we expect from Pakistan and the wider Muslim world after Mumbai? India says its interrogation of the surviving terrorist indicates that all 10 men come from the Pakistani port of Karachi, and at least one, if not all 10, were Pakistani nationals. First of all, it seems to me that the Pakistani government, which is extremely weak to begin with, has been taking this mass murder very seriously, and, for now, no official connection between the terrorists and elements of the Pakistani security services has been uncovered. COMMENTARY By NEIL STRAUSS: If fewer people feel powerless around and invalidated by others, than fewer people will resort to trying to get what they believe to be the upper hand through violence. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WebTV Dawgs/Dittos" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/WebTV-Pals -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
