The trial of five men accused in the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people is likely to start next week, Pakistan's interior minister said Saturday. Rehman Malik said the investigation into the role that the five played in the three-day siege of the Indian city of Mumbai last November is “almost complete.” He said the five men were in custody, and “their trial is going to commence probably next week.” Malik also rejected allegations – leveled by India – that Pakistan dragged its feet in the investigation, saying that with Saturday's announcement “we have proved that we are serious.” There was no immediate reaction to Malik's comments from Indian officials. However, earlier a Press Trust of India report qouted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as saying, “ Pakistan will promise action against those behind the Mumbai terror attacks when he meets counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani”. The discussions, on the margins of the global NAM summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, will be the second high-level contact between the two sides since the Mumbai raids. “I do hope that after our meeting we will have a reaffirmation on the part of Pakistan that they will bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai massacre to justice,” Singh told reporters on his way back from the G8 nations' meeting in Italy, the Press Trust of India reported. “If they do that we are willing to walk more than half the distance to normalize the relations.” The Gilani-Singh meeting is to be preceded by talks between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan. New Delhi blames the assault on militants trained in Pakistan and has pushed Islamabad to move swiftly to hunt down those responsible for orchestrating the attack. India has also demanded that Islamabad hand over the suspects, but Pakistan has rejected that call, saying it would try any suspects in its own courts. The US and other Western countries are also closely watching Pakistan's efforts to punish the suspects. Indian security forces killed nine of the Mumbai attackers and arrested the lone survivor, Ajmal Kasab, who New Delhi said belonged to the Pakistani militant outfit, Laskhar-e-Taiba. He told investigators the militants were trained on Pakistani soil and the attack was planner there.
