Brown in Delhi. (PTI)

Islamabad/New Delhi, Dec. 14: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today blamed the Lashkar-e-Toiba for the Mumbai attack and offered Pakistan a £6-million aid package to fight terror.

“The group responsible for the attacks is LeT and they have a great deal to answer for,” Brown said in New Delhi after a breakfast meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He then flew to Islamabad, which has been unwilling to accept the Lashkar’s culpability without evidence, and met President Asif Ali Zardari. Brown later told a joint news conference: “We will work to ensure… that terrorists are denied any safe haven in Pakistan. The time has come for action, not words.”

Brown said he had asked both Singh and Zardari if they would allow British police to question those held in India and Pakistan over the Mumbai massacre, including surviving gunman Mohammed Ajmal. He said he had left the matter to Singh and Zardari.

Sources said the reason for the request was that “Britain too is the target of the same evil designs hatched in the same region with al Qaida connections”.

Brown stressed the same point at the Islamabad news conference, as if to underscore Britain’s interest in seeing action from Pakistan over the Mumbai attack.

“Three-quarters of the most serious terrorist plots investigated by the British authorities have links to al Qaida in Pakistan,” he said.

In Delhi, where Brown arrived yesterday, he met Singh. Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon attended the talks.

Asked what Singh had told him about the attack’s Pakistani links, Brown said: “Indian police are interviewing people. We also know there have been arrests in Pakistan. We also know that the group responsible is LeT.”