New
spy links to Mumbai carnage By
Gautaman Bhaskaran
CHENNAI - Never at
peace since the Indian subcontinent was split into
Pakistan and India in 1947, the two countries have
fought several wars and came close to a deadly
nuclear conflict and catastrophe some years ago.
Now tension could again be inflamed.
Court
documents have surfaced ahead of a trial in
Chicago next month revealing that the two men
accused of being the brains behind the Mumbai
massacre could admit that they were working for
Pakistani spies.
On November 26, 2008,
Islamic militants entered India's financial
capital by sea and went on a killing spree
targeting a five-star hotel, a busy railway
station, a popular caf้ and a Jewish outreach
home. The attacks left close
to 200 people dead and twice as many wounded and
psychologically scarred.
Ajmal Kasab, the
only assassin to have been caught alive,
acknowledged that he and the others belonged to
the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based terrorist
organization. Kasab was tried in court and is now
in an Indian jail facing the noose.
Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana,
set to appear before a Chicago court on May 16, is
charged with providing false papers to militants
scouting for targets in Mumbai - an operation that
culminated in the black November night. Rana and
his long-time friend, David Coleman Headley, were
arrested by the American Federal Bureau of
Investigation in Illinois on a suspicion that they
had helped a terrorist outfit in its survey of
Mumbai for soft targets. Although Kasab
admitted in court that he was working for the
Lashkar, Indian investigating agencies were
skeptical. They were sure that Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) also had a hand
in the Mumbai carnage. New Delhi has known for
years that the ISI had notorious men working for
and in it, and that it had strong links with
Pakistan rebels groups, like the Lashkar. In
short, the ISI was a spy agency with double agents
who had been playing deadly double games. The ISI
is also alleged to have ties with the Pakistani
Army, and Islamabad has never been able to cut
this connection.
Now, Rana's trial may
well prove all this to be true. What observers
believe could be the most significant outcome of
the trial is an irrefutable evidence of ISI
complicity. The jury, according to the documents,
could have Rana and Headley confess that they were
with the Lashkar and the ISI.
Headley has
already admitted that he worked for the ISI, but
it was a secret testimony heard by a grand jury.
''I also told him (Rana) … how I had been asked to
perform espionage work for the ISI,'' Headley had
reportedly owned up. Some time ago, he had turned
an FBI informer, primarily to escape the electric
chair, and at the Chicago hearing, he is expected
to make a clean breast of his involvement in the
Mumbai bloodbath. His anticipated account of the
surveillance plan for the Mumbai attacks could
lead to clinching proof against Rana. Headley's
testament will probably include how he changed his
Pakistani name, nurtured ties with the Lashkar,
videotaped Mumbai locations and briefed the actual
killers before they sailed into the hugely
populous megacity.
Rana is a Canadian
citizen who for years provided consultancy for
South Asian men and women seeking to settle down
in North America. His firm, First World
Immigration Services, is based out of Chicago. He
has tried his best to explain why he helped
Headley secure his papers that allowed him to
enter India as an immigrant consultant. However,
recently, Rana said that he is a Pakistani patriot
who was forced into thinking that the ISI needed
his assistance. He therefore felt that he must be
given diplomatic immunity.
But as sheer
bad luck would have it, a tape that has Rana and
Headley discussing - soon after the Mumbai
slaughter - a plan to kill a Danish cartoonist who
lampooned the Prophet Mohammed, is now with
American prosecutors.
The Rana-Headley
confession may further strain the already wobbly
India-Pakistan ties, which were given a fresh dose
of oxygen during the recent semi-final World Cup
cricket match between the two nations at Mohali,
near Chandigarh. The home team won, to finally
take the Cup after a game with Sri Lanka in
Mumbai. At Mohali, the Prime Ministers of both
countries, Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani,
watched the two sides battle it out even as they
indulged in what has come to be commonly called
''Cricket Diplomacy''. The two leaders dined
together and pledged to continue working for
peace.
However, soon after the match, the
efforts seemed wasted when the Pakistani cricket
captain, Shahid Afridi, went on the offensive. The
moment he returned home, he called Indians shallow
and small hearted, and lambasted the Indian media
of exaggerating and dramatizing non-issues.
Curiously, even the previous trysts with
cricket diplomacy have led to disappointments.
Former Pakistani leaders also went to India to
watch their side play the game with India:
Zia-ul-Haq in 1987 and Pervez Musharraf in 2005.
Nothing came out of these bat-and-ball summits.
Yes, of course, Afridi spoilt the small
hope that New Delhi and Islamabad may have nursed
at Mohali. But the Rana-Headley trial and the new
evidence that it is about to throw up can make it
harder for the two nuclear-armed neighbors to find
peace.
Gautaman Bhaskaran is an
author, writer, columnist and film critic based in
Chennai.
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