The US will keep pressing Pakistan to help India get justice for the Mumbai terror attack, a senior US official said yesterday.
“We will continue to press Pakistan to take the fight to all terrorist networks in the border region and do everything in their power to help India achieve justice for the Mumbai attack which claimed both Indian and American lives,” US Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights Sarah B Sewall said here.
“That is what partners do - we help each other overcome shared struggles and face hard truths,” she added.
Ten Pakistani militants sneaked into Mumbai by sea in November 2008 and went on a killing spree, leaving 166 Indians and foreigners dead. Nine of the gunmen were killed and one was hanged.
New Delhi has for years pressed Islamabad to bring those who masterminded the attack to justice.
India and the US, Sewall said, “have also been brought together by the shared trauma of terrorism. We recognise that terror is too often on India’s doorstep”.
She said challenging calls for hatred and violence was vitally important for countries like India and the US if they need to take on terrorism.
Sewall said that justifying bigotry and discriminating against any religious group would not help the cause of fighting terrorism.
“Governments can help by ending stifling regulations on civil society and allowing citizen groups to peacefully speak and organise around sensitive topics,” she said.
“They can go a step further by proactively reaching out to build ties with communities targeted by violent extremists for recruitment,” she said, underlining that terrorism was a common foe of India and the US.
Ensuring freedom calls for more than just enforcing laws, the official said. It involves proactively speaking out - as both public officials and private citizens  - to challenge calls for hatred and violence.
“Silence can embolden the criminal and the cruel - as in the lynching of a Muslim man last September, or the burning of churches in Odisha.”
“Learning from the past, we must avoid the trap of invoking security to justify bigotry, profiling, and discrimination against any religious or ethnic group - including our Muslim brothers and sisters,” Sewall said.