Pakistan Navy Unsure If Mumbai Gunman Went By Sea

Pakistan is awaiting answers to a long list of questions put to India to help it follow through with the investigation.

Pakistan's naval chief said on Friday he did not have any evidence that Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, charged as one of the gunmen in last year's attacks on Mumbai, was among the raiding party that went by sea from Pakistan.

Indian police on Wednesday charged Kasab with "waging war" against India and included two Pakistani soldiers among 37 others charged for the attacks.

Pakistan this month acknowledged for the first time that the coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based militants in India's financial capital in November that killed about 170 people were launched and partly planned from its soil.

"As of now, with the information I have, it cannot be proved that Ajmal Kasab went by boat from here," Admiral Noman Bashir told a news conference.

"But when we get more information, we will look into it."

Pakistani investigators have already confirmed that the militants sailed from the Pakistani port of Karachi, using three different vessels over the course of the voyage.

Giving details of the investigation, Rehman Malik, adviser to the prime minister on interior affairs, had said that nine of the 10 gunmen involved in the attack went ashore in Mumbai in a dinghy.

Malik did not identify those who travelled to India but said Pakistan had registered a police complaint against Kasab and seven other suspects.

He also said six, including a ringleader, were in custody.

Pakistan is awaiting answers to a long list of questions put to India to help it follow through with the investigation.

The Pakistani admiral took a swipe at the Indian navy for failing to intercept the boat that Kasab may have sailed on.

"If he did go from here, when he entered Indian waters, where was the Indian navy?" Bashir asked.

The news conference was called to publicise a multi-national naval exercise to counter terrorism at sea. Bashir said 38 countries would participate in the exercise, planned from March 5-14, including Australia, Brazil and China.