If
all Washington wants to know are his whereabouts, he is quite happy to
pass on his daily itinerary to any designated individual or agency. The
goalposts shifted a bit. Washington has clarified that it will only pay
for material that can convict Hafiz Saeed. Step forward, P. Chidambaram,
Home Minister of India. Chidambaram has long insisted that he has
provided Pakistan with enough documentary evidence to indict Saeed. He
argues that it is Islamabad's unwillingness to pursue the case, and
dread of consequences, that keeps Saeed a free man, able and willing to
deliver a thousand sermons, whether from the street, mosque or
television. This week in Bangalore India's Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna
asserted once again that the evidence in these documents was
irrefutable. Why doesn't Chidambaram send this file to Washington, claim
the reward on behalf of the Indian police and sit back and see what
happens?

China, Pakistan's all-weather friend, raised the blame
game in what will surely be known as "bounty week" when on Friday, April
6, a formal foreign office statement blamed "a country in South Asia"
for providing sanctuary to six Muslim Uighurs, leaders of the East
Turkistan Islamic Movement, who "not only threaten China's national
security but also the peace and security of relevant countries and the
region." Xinhua, the state news agency, piled in by calling them "the
most direct and real safety threat that China faces." Strong words, but
no prize, I am afraid. Washington needs hard evidence in exchange for
hard cash. Names. Addresses. Mobile numbers. Name of country, please.
South Asia is too large. Are they in Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, Maldives, India or perhaps even Pakistan?

Circumspect
sentences won't do. So the bounty is still available to Delhi. Perhaps
Washington should have been just a little more forthcoming when it
posted its rewards programme for terrorists in international space.
America has not put Saeed among the five men on the ten-million list
because Delhi sent its version of how Lashkar-e-Taiba organised the
Mumbai outrage in 2008. It did so because one of Saeed's operatives, the
Pak-American David Headley, confessed details of Lashkar links to both
Al Qaeda and ISI, the Pakistan army's premier intelligence network:
Headley was arrested at Chicago airport by FBI in 2009. Headley's
contact with Al Qaeda was Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, and he revealed that
he had been financed by ISI to do reconnaissance work in India for the
Mumbai operation.

All this and much more has been revealed by
some courageous Pakistani journalism, notably by Syed Saleem Shahzad,
who was murdered shortly after his book Inside Al Qaeda and the Taliban
came out. Admiral Mike Mullen, then chairman of US Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said that he had been killed to prevent further revelations.
America has learnt specifics from the trove of papers it picked up from
Osama bin Laden's hideout, in the immediate neighbourhood of the
military academy at Abbottabad, which confirmed links between Al Qaeda
and Saeed. Saeed has been wanted by American agencies at least since
2008. In 2010 he was included in the American sanctions group. The
reward takes the search for Saeed to its next logical rung; and there
are not many rungs left on this ladder.

The situation therefore is
this: we have the money, crisp and waiting in the American treasury. We
have the object of attention, visible in plain sight, travelling
frequently within Pakistan. We have documents available, both in
Langley, CIA headquarters, and in one of the spacious, high-ceiling
rooms of the magnificent Lutyens' building in Delhi called North Block.
Is something missing? Could that be the will to take the next step? In
the privacy of desk work the dots have been joined over the last three
years, and a pattern is evident.

India has tried to answer the
crucial question: what next? It has sought the cooperation of Islamabad,
and been frustrated by delay. The Indian government has indicated, at
every opportunity, that it understands the inability of Islamabad to do
more, since the facts could do severe damage to Pakistan's institutions.
That is why it has not made India- Pakistan relations hostage to
progress on cooperation in terrorism, even though Mumbai has left a scar
on India's psyche that will not disappear.

This is why Asif
Zardari had lunch with Dr. Manmohan Singh in Delhi on April 8 even
though he brought nothing to the table on Pak-origin terrorism against
India. But Washington does not have a president called Manmohan Singh.
It plays by different rules. It can be elastic, as in its relations with
ISI. But such elasticity snaps. Its decision on Saeed is proof that
this elastic band has broken.

That elastic was holding up its relations with Pakistan. That equation has loosened just a little more.

The writer is Editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London and Editorial Director, India Today and Headlines Today.