Anti-terror mechanism 'naive', say officials

The India-Pakistan joint statement in Havana on Saturday has now pit the security and intelligence establishment against the proposed anti-terror mechanism.

Several senior intelligence officers have termed it "a naive plan which necessitates an incredible leap of faith" on the part of both the foreign office and the home ministry.

According to these officials, the home ministry has detailed locations and plans of at least 85 terror training camps in various locations in Pakistan, including mainland Punjab and far flung Skardu and Northern Areas.

"These camps have been set up by Pakistan intelligence agency, the ISI, and are used to launch terror in India," said an official.

"How are we to trust a government which has allowed these camps to flourish," said the official. "In fact, what we now see is how the Pakistan intelligence agencies are leveraging Dawood Ibrahim and the D-Company by using Indians as terror modules, thus not leaving any traces of Pakistani involvement behind," said an official.

It is, however, this very lack of a credible link between the Mumbai blasts and Pakistani involvement that has made India call for a renewal of foreign secretary level talks.

"We suspended the talks after July 11, without any breakthrough in the case which points to Pakistani involvement. There is no justification for continuing the suspension," said an official in the ministry of external affairs.

"The PM has also said that this joint mechanism is a leap of faith. It cannot harm us to have a little faith in the Pakistan government. We have to give the old school a try," the official added.

Whatever the shape of the joint mechanism, it cannot hope to be at the same level as the Pakistan-UK intelligence sharing mechanism.

"We are very far away from that point. The two countries have enmeshed security concerns, not adversarial like us," said a ministry of external affairs official.