India summoned the Pakistani High Commissioner in Delhi yesterday to demand “strong action” against the Pakistani militants that it says were responsible for last week’s attacks on Mumbai.

It demanded that Islamabad extradite Dawood Ibrahim, a fugitive Mumbai mafia don who it believes has links to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based militant group being blamed for the attacks.

India also asked for Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the LeT founder, and Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of another militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, (JeM), who was freed in exchange for passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines flight in 1999.

Delhi issued its demands after Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, urged Pakistan to cooperate with India as she prepared to visit Delhi to mediate between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Ibrahim, Mumbai’s most notorious underworld don, is the head of D-Company, a feared crime syndicate, and one of the world’s five most wanted men. He is widely believed to have worked closely with al-Qaeda. He is also thought to have master-minded the 1993 Mumbai bombings, a series of 13 explosions that claimed 250 lives.

India’s spy agency, the Research and Intelligence Wing, believes that Ibrahim is currently in Karachi, but his reach still allegedly extends into the very police force that is investigating the Mumbai atrocities.

Three months ago Pradeep Sharma, – the city force’s top hitman, who had been credited with killing 112 criminals over a bloody 25-year career – was dismissed for being in league with the gangsters whom he was supposed to eliminate. Most damning was the allegation that this real-life Dirty Harry, a hero of the Mumbai force, was in contact with Ibrahim.

Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani President, insisted that the militants who attacked Mumbai were “nonstate actors” with no links to any government. India, however, signalled that it holds Islamabad responsible in some way when it summoned Shahid Malik, the Pakistani High Commissioner, to the Foreign Ministry.

Indian officials said that all the militants were from Pakistan and that the only one captured alive has admitted to being part of LeT. The group was also blamed along with JeM for an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001, which prompted India and Pakistan to mass troops on their common border, almost triggering their fourth war since independence.

Pakistan, which outlawed LeT in 2002, denies involvement in last week’s attacks and has warned that if India masses troops on the border again, it will withdraw its forces from the Afghan frontier.

Such action would reverse the progress that has been made since Pakistan’s launched its biggest offensive against militants in its lawless tribal areas in September.

The crisis was high on the agenda when President-elect Obama held his first meeting with his national security team, including Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. “We’re going to be engaged in some delicate diplomacy in the next days and weeks,” he said.

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