NEW DELHI (AlArabiya.net, Reuters)

India on Saturday said the international community should consider declaring Pakistan a terrorist state in light of the country’s release of a scientist who sold nuclear secrets around the globe.

"It is time for the international community to think whether to declare Pakistan a terrorist country," Manish Tewari, the ruling Congress party spokesman said in New Delhi, in reference to the end from house arrest of Pakistani nuclear Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Khan, the man at the centre of the world' most serious nuclear proliferation scandal, was released on Friday after five years of house arrest.

Revered by many Pakistanis as the father of the country's atomic bomb, he confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya in 2004. He was immediately pardoned by the government, although his movements were restricted.

India's Congress party, which faces election in April, where security is likely to be a major voting issue, said Khan's release was a serious security concern.

"Defending him proves Pakistan as not only an exporter of terrorism, but has also given rise to doubts of certain countries, including (United States) America, that nuclear weapons could go into the hands of terrorists," Tiwari told reporters.

Earlier, the Indian army chief said militant camps in Pakistan were thriving and had increased in the past year, as India put pressure on Islamabad to bring militants behind last November's attacks in Mumbai to justice.

"I would not talk about the numbers specifically right now...but infrastructure is existing and active," General Deepak Kapoor told the Press Trust of India (PTI).

India has said the militant attack on its financial capital Mumbai November last year, in which 179 people were killed, was planned from a camp in Pakistan.

Relations between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have been strained since then, with India saying Pakistan was not doing enough to rein in militants.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said this week Pakistan's main spy agency was linked to planners of the Mumbai attacks.

Pakistan has denied any involvement by state agencies and said it was investigating a dossier of information from India, to which it will reply next week.

Comments

1 -

Pakistan is a weak state

Dr. Ivo Sanader, Croatia [ Sunday, February 08, 2009 ]

Pakistan is just a weak state that isn't able to control many parts of its own territory. Some lousy Taliban terrorists are posing a threat to Pakistan and its army seems incapable of coping with them. Its security forces can't prevent and stop numerous terrorist attacks on civilian and state institution targets. This is why India shouldn't bother about Pakistan as much as it does. Pakistan just can't afford itself to start another war with India. India would just chew Pakistan and spit it.

2 -

(...)

Murad [ Sunday, February 08, 2009 ]

Indians are getting way over their heads, they are occupying by force Kashmir, Sri Lanka and many other states, i believe it is time to call on the liberation of people including the sikh who want their own country. Let us see how much of india will be left to be called a DEMOCRACY, i call it the democracy of stick and stones and breaking of bones, where in each and every indian election 1000 die and as many lose their limbs in a railroad bombing. India is trying to play it both ways, supprt to israel, terrorize muslims and act as if they are the creators of wisdom, not a chance.

3 -

USA not a qualifing terrorist state of being users not once but twice

secretslave [ Sunday, February 08, 2009 ]

salaam, Then accussed others so whom is guilty the user and the accussor, points away from its own accounts in deeds of work efforts.

4 -

War and peace

[ Sunday, February 08, 2009 ]

This reminds me of when my marriage broke up - my 5 year old wanted to divorce my 4 year old because she didn't like her (and she didn't do what my 5 year old told her); and my 5 year old warned me that, if I didn't do as I was told she would leave me too. We can all divide the world up into the good 'us' and the evil 'them' - as the West and the Jihadists do; we can divide it into what's in the light and and what's in the shadow without noticing that unity contains both; or we can strive to build peace, and look at the tough issues that are preventing it.

5 -

Third World War?????????

Nick Martin [ Sunday, February 08, 2009 ]