The lashkar-e-Tayyeba is supplementing Pakistan's military campaign. This is the reason why, action against lakhvi is out of question. It will alienate the leT, which neither the Army nor the civilian regime can afford
Terrorists walking out of courts free and laughing is a scene by no means rare in Pakistan. The release of Zaki-ur-Rehman lakhvi, the mastermind of the terrorist attack on Mumbai that started on November 26, 2008, lasted 59 hours and left 166 persons dead, should, therefore, surprise no one. Those familiar with Pakistan’s realities, should have known from the beginning that lakhvi’s release had been scripted into the drama planned by Pakistan’s Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, the country’s super state-cum dirty tricks arm, and implemented by terrorist organisations like the lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, the Jammu & Kashmir liberation Front, the Hizbul Mujahideen and so on, it has spawned. The arrests, trials and detentions of the 26/11 accused one witnessed earlier, were clearly a part of a carefully choreographed effort to create the impression that Pakistan was serious about combating terrorism.
Since Pakistan’s attempted justifications of the disgracefully slow progress of the case against lakhvi and six others involved in the terror attack — Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younus Anjum — have repeatedly proved hollow, these merit only cursory attention. To cite just the principal example, its contention that India has provided only information and not evidence, is laughable. This country could only provide evidence available here in the form of message intercepts which identify the culprits by their voices and the confession of Ajmal Amir Kasab who gave details of the conspiracy and the names of some of them behind it. It has supplied these meticulously. Inter-Services Intelligence personnel hatched the conspiracy in Pakistan, a fact corroborated by the Pakistan-born American terrorist, David Coleman Headley, who’s scouting around for targets in Mumbai, played an important role in the attack.
Further corroboration has been provided by Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari aka Abu Hamza and Abu Jundal, an Indian national who had fled to Pakistan, and joined the lashkar-e-Tayyeba. He is now in custody in India following deportation from Saudi Arabia in June 2012. Hence, the bulk of the evidence had to be available in Pakistan. What has happened to itIJ The answer became clear when, while granting lakhvi’s bail plea, judge Anwar-ul-Haq of the lahore High Court, criticised Pakistan’s Government for failing to provide “sensitive” information about the accused.
This, as well as the luxurious life that lakhvi and the six others enjoyed in prison, makes it clear that Pakistan’s Government had sabotaged the prosecution to ensure his release on bail, which, in turn, puts all of Islamabad’s action relating to the trial of the 26/11 accused in perspective. It also makes clear that none of the culprits can ever be punished. For one thing, thanks to the Islamisation of Pakistan’s society and Army during the dictatorship of General-turned-President Zia-ul-Haq, the ISI and the country’s Army are split down the line on the issue of terrorism and Islamist fundamentalism. This is one reason why Pakistan’s effort to combat the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, is not going anywhere.
Besides, the leT, perhaps the ISI’s most favourite progeny, is supplementing, through propaganda, Pakistan’s military campaign against the TTP and allied elements in North and South Waziristan. This has been cited as the reason why any action against lakhvi and others is out of the question since it will alienate the leT, which neither the Army nor the civilian Government can afford to do. This may be true up to a point. The most important reason is that the Army and the ISI, of which the leT and allied bodies are strategic assets, do not want to take action. Nor do Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Punjab, who have excellent ties with Hafiz Saeed, the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h, the parent organisation of the leT, and have been helping him with Government funds. Under the latter as Chief Minister, Pakistan’s Punjab provincial Government provided more than Rs8.2 crore in 2009-2010 for the administration of JuD facilities.
In fiscal 2010-2011, Chief Minister Sharif, using his discretionary powers, allocated Rs7.98 crore for six organisations at Markaz-e-Tayyeba, the JuD’s largest centre, and a special grant-in-aid of Rs30 lakh for the JuD’s Al-Dawa school system. Pakistan’s Punjab’s provincial Government’s Budget for 2013-2014 allocated Rs35 crore to the Markaz-e-Tayyeba for setting up a ‘knowledge Park’ and Rs6.1 crore to the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h.
All this makes clear that Pakistan will not only not persist with but escalate terrorist action against India by using lakhvi and organisations like leT, JuD JeM, HUJI, JuM and JKlF. A report in The Pioneer on April 13, that the ISI has been recruiting Afghan youth for giving them specialised training for carrying out sabotage and terrorist strikes in India, including a 26/11-type operation in Delhi, confirms this. The report further points out that 60 Afghan youths had been taken, at the ISI’s behest, in small batches, to Pakistan in September 2014. According to intelligence agencies, six, who have been extensively trained by Pakistan’s Army and the ISI in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir may enter India from Bangladesh, Sri lanka, Nepal or Singapore. Apart from Delhi, where the lobbies of two hotels could, according to the report, be attacked, leT was planning to hit Indian, American and Israeli targets in other parts of the country. The ISI has also created 20-strong groups of highly-trained fidayeens (ready to die) attackers to target police and military installations in Jammu & Kashmir.
What is to be doneIJ India cannot, beyond a point, depend on other countries to fight its war against terrorism. Friends will share technical and human intelligence and in efforts to stanch the flow of funds to terror organisations. In the end, all-friendly countries have their own compulsions which limit their ability. New Delhi’s own efforts must begin with an immediate hardening of its posture toward Pakistan which seems to believe that it can continue bleeding this country without suffering any retribution. Simultaneously, it must further strengthen its own intelligence apparatus and steeply enhance the cost of terrorism for Pakistan. The necessary measures need to be planned and implemented at the earliest. Finally, New Delhi must undertake a crash programme to provide its Armed Forces with adequate weapons and logistics to enable them to win a conventional war with Pakistan, the possibility of which will become increasingly real as Pakistan ratchets up its ongoing unconventional war against this country.