India seeks 50 fugitives in Pakistan

India has handed to Pakistan a list of 50 "most-wanted" fugitives, including top terror suspects, who are believed to be sheltering in the country, reports said Wednesday.

The list, reported by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency and other local media, includes Dawood Ibrahim, the alleged mastermind of deadly bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993 and second on Interpol's "most-wanted" list.

Another is Hafiz Saeed, the university professor who founded the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and is accused of planning the 2008 attacks on India's financial hub in which 166 people died, PTI reported.

India's CNN-IBN network, which said it had also seen the list, said the names were handed by Home Secretary G.K. Pillai to his Pakistani counterpart Chaudhary Qamar Zaman during talks in March in New Delhi.

A home ministry spokesman declined to comment on the reports, which come after India denounced Pakistan as a terrorist "sanctuary" following the killing of Osama bin Laden by US forces in a villa less than two hours' drive from Islamabad.

India accuses Pakistan of providing shelter and support to militant groups planning attacks on Indian soil.

Also named on the list is Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar, the main accused in the 2001 parliament attack that nearly brought the nuclear-armed neighbours to war, PTI said.

Pakistan has long insisted that Ibrahim, the key accused in a string of blasts that rocked Mumbai in 1993, killing at least 300 people, is not hiding on its territory.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Tuesday: "If we get hold of him naturally we will look into it. But as far as our information, he is not here."

Ibrahim is second on Interpol's "most-wanted" list after Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

In 2008, following the Mumbai attacks, India served Islamabad with a demand to hand over 20 "most-wanted" criminals and militants, but there has been no headway.