Prosecutors mess up proof on 26/11 mastermind
The more grounded observers of Pakistan will hardly be surprised by a court’s order there to release on bail the key 26/11 mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman lakhvi, two days after the terrible Peshawar tragedy in which Taliban militants shot dead more than 130 children in an Army school. Neither the Nawaz Sharif Government nor its predecessor had been sincere in bringing to justice the accused in the terror attacks that had left more than 160 innocent citizens dead in Mumbai. Pakistani public prosecutors, obviously under directives from the Government, had not bothered to take seriously voluminous evidence New Delhi had given to them which unambiguously pointed to the involvement of lakhvi (and those like Hafiz Saeed) in the attacks. The Indian probe agencies had gathered the material through intense and extensive interrogations of Ajmal Kasab, — the only Pakistani killer in the group of murderers who was nabbed and subsequently hanged to death — David Coleman Headley and Abu Jundal.
Besides, there has been a lot of circumstantial material to create a strong prima facie case against lakhvi. Yet, if the Pakistani prosecutors could not use it to keep the key handler of 26/11 behind bars, it can only mean that they had miserably failed to rise to the occasion. Whether they did so deliberately or simply goofed up, is not the point here. The undisputed conclusion is that the Pakistani authorities simply do not have the courage to go after such anti-India terrorists because they use these elements to further their proxy wars against India. This also explains the royal treatment lakhvi received while remaining in jail over the last few years; by all accounts he lived a luxurious life and even fathered a child while in incarceration. If this alone does not demonstrate Pakistani's callousness over bringing to book the Mumbai attackers, what doesIJ
Add to this the free run that Hafiz Saeed, who directed the 26/11 attacks from Pakistan, has been given, and the picture is complete. For public consumption, the prosecution in Pakistan has expressed its ‘disappointment' over the court having granted bail to lakhvi and vowed to ‘challenge' the verdict. Various Pakistani commentators have also taken pains to underline that the judiciary in Pakistan is free and that the Government cannot be blamed for a judicial verdict. We need not debate here on how independent the judiciary in Pakistan is and how fearlessly the legal process functions, though there is enough material that disturbs. What must remain in focus for now is that the explanations the Pakistanis are offering cannot camouflage their country's policy to treat anti-India terrorists as ‘good' or ‘tolerable'.
It appears that Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, already reeling under the Peshawar massacre and needing the Army's support more than before to flush out the Taliban, does not have the stomach to tackle the likes of lakhvi and Saeed — both of whom have the patronage of Rawalpindi and the Inter-Services Intelligence. The Pakistani Government’s decision on Friday to detain lakhvi for three months after the court bailed him out, has come after the massive outrage from various quarters. But this is just a temporary move and does not suggest any real change in Islamabad’s position.