ISLAMABAD - As the foreign ministers of
India and Pakistan agreed in New Delhi on July 27
to strengthen cooperation on counter-terrorism to
bring those responsible for terror crimes to
justice, the Indian Central Bureau of
Investigation has prepared a fresh list of most
wanted fugitives who had allegedly committed
terrorist activities on Indian soil and are now
believed to be sheltering in Pakistan.
Of
the 50 names mentioned on the list, which will be
handed over to the Pakistani Federal Investigation
Agency shortly, five are serving majors of the
Pakistan army.
According to highly-placed
diplomatic sources in Islamabad, the Indian Home
Ministry will send the list to the Ministry of
External Affairs, which in turn will send it to
the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, with a
request to the Pakistan government to track
terrorists who are allegedly hiding on its soil.
The sources believe the Indian decision to
prepare a fresh list of
the most wanted fugitive
terrorists soon after the conclusion of the Delhi
talks is a shrewd move to test Islamabad's
seriousness in nipping the evil of terrorism in
the bud. This is especially timely since the
foreign ministers of the nuclear-armed South Asian
neighbors publicly declared through a joint
statement at the end of their parleys that
"terrorism posed an ongoing threat to peace and
security of the region and both the countries
should take steps to eliminate this menace in all
its forms and manifestations".
The fresh
Indian list comes at a time when Pakistan is
already reeling under growing pressure from the
Barack Obama administration in the United States
to do more to track terrorists.
The new
most wanted list was prepared by the Indian Home
Ministry after withdrawing a previous list issued
in the aftermath of the May 2 American commando
operation in the Abbottabad area of Pakistan that
culminated in the killing of the world's most
wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.
The
Indian move at that time was meant to exploit Bin
Laden's killing on Pakistani soil to its advantage
by mounting pressure on Islamabad to stop
harboring wanted terrorists.
However, the
Home Ministry had to withdraw the May list, mainly
because it carried the names of two men who
actually surfaced in the Indian city of Mumbai.
The first, Feroz Abdul Khan, was arrested
in connection with a shipment of arms and
ammunition for the Mumbai serial blasts in 1993,
and was actually in a high-security Indian jail
awaiting trial. The other, Wazhur Qamar Khan,
arrested in connection with another bomb blast in
Mumbai in 2003, was on bail, living with his
family in the Thane district of Mumbai and
regularly appearing in the local police station to
fulfill a legal requirement. Their names have been
excluded from the fresh list being provided to
Pakistan.
Seeking their immediate arrest
and extradition to India, the list of most wanted
handed over to Pakistan also carries Interpol "red
corner" notices and details of the crimes
committed by those allegedly hiding in Pakistan,
along with their aliases as well as their
Pakistani passports and identity document numbers.
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) founder Professor
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who currently heads the
Jamaatul Daawa, tops India's fresh list of the
most wanted people for his alleged involvement in
the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The five
serving majors were also named for an alleged role
in those attacks.
These include Major
Sajid Majid (named by David Headley, an American
terror accused being tried in the United States);
Major Mohammad Iqbal, an Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) official and Headley's alleged
handler who faces terrorism charges in the US for
his role in the 26/11 Mumbai attack; Major Sameer
Ali (an ISI official accused of having worked with
Headley); Major Syed Abdul Rehman alias Pasha
(accused of carrying out a chunk of the
recruitments for the LeT); and Major Abu Hamza
(one of the alleged November 2008 handlers who was
on the phone with the terrorists who carried out
Mumbai attack).
The Indian National
Investigation Agency (NIA) has already secured an
Interpol "red corner" notice against the five army
officers. The warrants were issued on the basis of
claims made by Headley that these people had
worked in close coordination with him in executing
the LeT plans for carrying out terror strikes in
Mumbai.
The NIA has also secured "red
corner" notices against two LeT leaders, Saeed and
Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, for their alleged role in
those attacks of November 2008. A "red corner"
notice is only issued on the request of a member
country of Interpol and is not an international
arrest warrant.
A US federal court in
November 2010 issued a summons to the sitting and
former director generals of the ISI, as well as a
number of senior office bearers of the LeT for
their alleged involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
The court is currently hearing a law suit filed by
relatives of Gavriel Noah Holtzberg, an American
Jew, killed along with his wife during the
November 2008 strikes. The petitioners alleged
that the ISI had a role in the episode.
However, a Pakistani military spokesman
has already rejected the involvement of any
Pakistani official from the army or the ISI in the
Mumbai attacks, saying there is no truth in the
allegations being leveled only to malign the armed
forces of Pakistan.
According to Major
General Athar Abbas, director general of
Inter-Services Public Relations, "There is no
question of any serving Pakistani officer, either
in the military or ISI, being involved in any type
of terrorist activities. Our services and
intelligence follow the military norms of
discipline."
India's most wanted list also
includes the names of Dawood Ibrahim and his
trusted lieutenants (Tiger Memon, Chhota Shakeel,
Ayub Memon and Abdul Razzak) as well as five
hijackers of the Indian Airlines' IC-814 flight
(Ibrahim Athar, Zahoor Ibrahim Mistri, Shahid
Akhtar Sayed and Azhar Yusuf.)
Already
listed as a "global terrorist" by the United
States due to his alleged al-Qaeda links, Dawood
has evolved from a Mumbai underworld figure to a
full-blown global terrorist and believed to be
hiding in Pakistan with the backing of the
Pakistani intelligence establishment. Indian
intelligence agencies claim that Dawood shuttles
between the southern port city of Karachi and the
capital, Islamabad, having already changed his
identity to Iqbal Seth alias Ameer Sahib.
The Indian list also carries the names of
Maulana Masood Azhar, the amir of the
Pakistan-based pro-Kashmir militant organization
Jaish-e-Mohammad and Pir Syed Salahuddin, the
Pakistan-based commander of another pro-Kashmir
militant group, the Hizbul Mujahideen, and Zakiur
Rehman Lakhvi, the chief operational commander of
the LeT who is already being tried by a Pakistani
court in Rawalpindi for his alleged role in the
Mumbai attacks of November 2008.
Interestingly, the Indian list of most
wanted people also carries the name of Ilyas
Kashmiri, who is believed to have been killed in a
US drone attack that targeted his hideout in
Gowakha village of the Wana area in the South
Waziristan tribal area on June 3.
However,
Indian authorities believe that true to his
reputation of a survivor, Kashmiri might have
escaped death once again. (See Kashmiri's
great escape (reprise) Asia Times Online, July
22.)
The indications are that Kashmiri
intentionally floated the news of his death in a
drone attack to avoid the heat following the
killing of Bin Laden in Pakistan. His role in the
Mumbai terror plot is unclear, but as per his own
claims he was the one who thought of such a plan,
which was eventually hijacked. (See Al-Qaeda
'hijack' led to Mumbai attack Asia Times
Online, December 2, 2008.)
Other names in
India's most wanted list include Anwar Ahmed Haji
Jamal, Mohammed Dosa, Javed Chikna, Salim Abdul
Ghazi, Riyaz Khatri, Munaf Halari, Mohammad Salim
Mujhahid, Khan Bashir Ahmed, Yakub Yeda Khan,
Mohammed Memon, Irfan Chaugule, Ali Moosa, Sagir
Ali Shaikh, Aftab Batki, Amir Raza Khan, Azam
Cheema, Syed Zabiuddin Jabi, Ibrahim Athar, Azhar
Yusuf, Zahur Ibrahim Mistri, Akhtar Sayeed,
Mohammed Shakir, Rauf Abdul, Amanullah Khan,
Sufiyan Mufti, Nachan Akmal, Pathan Yaqoob Khan,
Bashir, Lakhbir Singh Rode, Paramjit Singh Pamma,
Ranjit Singh and Wadhawa Singh Babbar.
Asked about a possible Pakistani reaction
to India's most wanted list when it is presented
to the authorities in Islamabad, a senior official
of the Pakistani Ministry of Interior observed on
condition of anonymity:
Firstly, there is no extradition
treaty between the two countries. Secondly, what
about the Pakistani list of 53 most wanted
fugitive terrorists who are sheltering in India
after committing deadly terrorist activities in
Pakistan? Pakistan had handed over the list to
India during the last round of the now suspended
composite dialogue, but New Delhi has so far not
responded positively. The Pakistani side can
again impress upon India to hand over the wanted
terrorists as they had played havoc with the
lives and belongings of innocent people of
Pakistan.
Amir Mir is a
senior Pakistani journalist and the author of
several books on the subject of militant Islam and
terrorism, the latest being The Bhutto murder
trail: From Waziristan to GHQ.
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