03 January,2009 06:53 PM IST | | PTI
There was no doubt about Pakistan's complicity in the Mumbai attacks, internationally acclaimed India-born author Salman Rushdie has said and urged Britain to stop aid to Islamabad for failing to act against terrorists operating from its soil.
"There is no question that this was Pakistan. You could see it as an act of war," the writer of 'Satanic Verses' and 'Midnight's Children' said in an interview to The Times.
"The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle, to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things," he said.
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"This country should make clear that as long as Pakistan harbours terrorists it's not going to get any Western aid." Mumbai saw a demonstration of the "extraordinary barbarism" that people are prepared to unleash on the world, the controversial author said.
"How many of these attacks do we need before we understand what's going on?" Recalling his days in Mumbai, Rushdie said he watched with horror as flames tore through the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai. "Those are the streets I grew up on. Two of the characters in my novel 'Midnight's Children' consummate their love affair in the Palace, as so many of us did."
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