Pak denies claiming 26/11 terrorists, slams India

Islamabad/Mumbai: Pakistan has denied it had agreed to accept the bodies of four of the nine terrorists killed in the 26/11 Mumbai carnage as has been claimed by the Home Minister of India's Maharashtra state.

Foreign Office spokesperson Abdul Basit told Online news agency in Islamabad that reports on this in the Indian media were baseless and fabricated.

"He strongly condemned this attitude of the Indian media and said that it was not a suitable time to publish such kind of baseless news items when only very recently the prime ministers of Pakistan and India had held a very important meeting in Sharm El Sheikh while the next course of secretary level dialogue was going to be held in New York on the (sidelines) of the UN General Assembly session," Online said.

Basit said Pakistan's high commission in New Delhi had never made any request to India on handing over the dead bodies of four of the 26/11 attackers.

He also wanted the Indian media to avoid carrying stories that might derail the Pakistan-India dialogue.

Maharashtra Home Minister Jayant Patil said in Mumbai Monday that Pakistan had owned up to four of the nine terrorists who were gunned down during the Nov 26-29, 2008 attacks.

"Now, we shall pursue with the centre that Pakistan should accept the bodies of all the nine (terrorists) gunned down by security forces. We hope this matter will be sorted out in the next 10 days," Patil said.

Patil said he was informed that the Pakistan government had accepted as its nationals four of the nine who carried out the 26/11 terror operation in Mumbai.

The bodies of nine terrorists are lying in the morgue of the Sir J.J. Hospital for the past nine months and their condition is not very good, Patil said.

When asked what the authorities would do about disposing of the bodies if Pakistan refused to accept them, Patil said that would be decided at the appropriate time.

Nine of the 10 terrorists, who attacked the city were killed in fierce gun battles with security forces during the 60-hour long operation last year at various places in the western metropolis.

Only one - Ajmal Amir Kasab - was captured alive and he is currently being tried in a Mumbai court.