Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram.—File Photo

NEW DELHI: Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram called on Pakistan on Friday to acknowledge that an arrested suspect in the 2008 Mumbai attacks had helped coordinate the assault from a command post in Karachi.

Sayed Zabiuddin, an Indian-born alleged member of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, was detained at Delhi international airport on June 21 when he arrived from the Middle East.

Indian police say Zabiuddin, who also goes under the names Abu Hamza and Abu Jundal, has confessed to being a key handler for the 10 militants who attacked India’s financial capital in 2008, killing 166 people.

According to police, he admitted being present in the “control room” in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi from where the attack was monitored and coordinated.

Mohammed Kasab, the lone surviving gunman from the attack, is currently on death row in a Mumbai prison.

Zabiuddin “had found a very safe haven in Pakistan,” Chidambaram told reporters.

“Pakistan should admit that (he) did go to Pakistan, that he was part of the group which prepared Kasab and nine others, that (he) was in the control room among one of the handlers and masterminds of the attack.

“Just as we admit facts, Pakistan should also admit facts,” the minister said.

Pakistan has asked India to share information on Zabiuddin and urged New Delhi to refrain from blaming Islamabad.

“India should supply details... enabling us to take action,” Pakistan’s advisor on interior affairs, Rehman Malik, said Wednesday.

“Let us end the blame game... We have to fight terrorism together,” Malik added.

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