New Delhi:
The BJP has suggested that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh take up very categorically, the issue of cross-border terrorism with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari when he hosts him for lunch this Saturday.
The opposition party used the occasion of the US declaring a 10-million-dollar bounty for India's most-wanted man Hafiz Saeed to say that while "We welcome Zardari's visit" it was "hopeful that the PM would make it clear to him (Mr Zardari) that no normal dialogue is possible till Pakistan stops sponsored terrorism against India."
BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad also took a swipe at Home Minister P Chidambaram, saying, "We saw an utter sense of helplessness in Chidambaram's speech yesterday that Pakistan is not doing its duty." The ability of Pakistan to take take action on terror was suspect, Mr Prasad said.
Hafiz Saeed, who founded the lethal Lashkar-e-Taiba, now rubs shoulders with Taliban founder Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden's successor as Al Qaida chief Al Zawahiri top of the list of America's most wanted terrorists. But the Pakistani is a free man in his country, and Pakistan says it cannot act against him without evidence.