Islamabad/London, Jan. 4 (PTI): Islamabad may allow Indian investigators to “grill” Pakistani suspects in the Mumbai attacks if New Delhi provides “sufficient evidence” against them, but will not hand them over, a newspaper said here today.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said yesterday he hoped “better sense” would prevail on Pakistan and it would hand the suspects over to India.

“At the most, Pakistan could permit the Indians to grill the people now under detention and being questioned by the Pakistani authorities and blamed by New Delhi for a key role in the Mumbai carnage. However, there is no likelihood that they will be handed over to India,” The Nation quoted an unnamed senior Pakistani official as saying.

Lashkar-e-Toiba operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the suspected mastermind of the Mumbai carnage, and its communications specialist Zarar Shah are among militants believed to be detained in Pakistan.

“But the main thing is sufficient evidence proving the involvement of those who are being blamed,” the official was quoted as saying. He said that if India provided evidence instead of engaging in “a blame-game”, Indian investigators could be given access to the suspects.

The same went for law enforcement or investigative agencies from the rest of the world, the official added. Reports have said Washington has handed Pakistan tapes proving Lakhvi’s link to the attacks, and that Shah has confessed to a role in the carnage before Pakistani investigators.

Today, The Sunday Times, London, reported that the US investigative agency, FBI, had handed Pakistan evidence about a Lashkar handler warning the Mumbai attackers about the arrival of Indian commandos while watching the mayhem live on TV.

The newspaper said the FBI had decoded Skype calls made over the Internet between the gunmen in the Taj, the Oberoi-Trident and Nariman House and their Lashkar controllers in Pakistan, identified as Shah, Abu Hamza and Abu Qafa.

Talking in colloquial Punjabi, the controllers repeatedly told the attackers “Aag lagao (light a fire)”, the report said.

During the conversation, the gunmen were also instructed to kill all the Israelis held captive in Nariman House, it said.

Shah had corroborated Indian authorities’ claim that the 10 attackers were trained in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and had travelled by boat from Karachi to Mumbai, the newspaper said, adding that Shah had implicated several other Lashkar men.

According to the report, Islamabad rejected the alleged FBI evidence.

Yesterday, Pakistani newspaper Dawn had said the government should issue a “progress report” on its own probe into the Mumbai attacks following reports about Shah’s confession.

“Otherwise Islamabad will not be in a position to counter criticism that facts are being withheld and we will continue to be deemed guilty until proven innocent,” it said.

“Foot-dragging will get us nowhere…. Pakistan’s intelligence resources could verify the ‘authenticity or otherwise’ of intercepts of phone conversations between LeT (Lashkar) commanders and militants holed up in a hotel in Mumbai. The sooner this is done, and the facts placed before the nation and the world, the better.”