Execution met with silence in
Pakistan By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI - Wednesday, November 21, dawned
like any other in the sleepy town of Faridkot,
some 150 kilometers from the Punjab capital of
Lahore in Pakistan. But as the town's 3,000
residents went about their daily routines the air
grew thick with apprehension, for a reason none
wanted to mention.
At seventy-thirty that
morning, one of the town's former residents, a man
named Ajmal Kasab, was executed in Pune's Yerawada
Central Jail, in western India's Maharashtra
state.
Kasab was the sole survivor of a
group of 10 men who carried out the three-day
terror rampage in November 2008 that left 166
people dead in Mumbai.
Kasab was charged
with 86 offences, including murder and
waging war against the
Indian state. After a long trial and the denial of
his clemency appeal on November 5, he was hanged
just a few days before the fourth anniversary of
the senseless but well-orchestrated attack that
brought the nuclear neighbors to the brink of war.
Shafique Butt, a correspondent for the
English daily newspaper 'Dawn', who visited the
village on the morning of the execution, told IPS
over the phone from Punjab, "While everyone knew
he had been hanged, people were just not willing
to talk about it; let alone express their feelings
- either in favor or against (the execution)."
Kasab's immediate family had long since
left the village. "No one is sure if they have
been relocated by the militant group
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or Pakistan's intelligence
agencies," said Butt. The LeT is also blamed for
an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.
"I was told there are five or six Lashkar
men in the village," Butt added, including,
possibly, Kasab's younger brother who was just a
teenager in 2008.
On the streets, ordinary
Pakistanis have shown little or no interest in
Kasab's hanging. They are far too concerned about
their own safety: bomb blasts have become a daily
occurrence in all the big cities, despite high
security since the holy month of Muharram began a
week ago.
"The government of Pakistan will
not take a critical position on this issue; it
will stay quiet," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a
Lahore-based political analyst.
Islamic
parties and hardline anti-India groups have
expressed some resentment or spoken about the
denial of justice, Askari told IPS, but sustained
protest was not expected.
Only a handful
of people, like Saba Khan, a housemaid in
Faridkot, lamented the act. "Couldn't they have
given him life imprisonment? They didn't even
grant him his last wish of meeting his mother,"
she told IPS.
On the other side of the
border, the hanging has been hailed as "a victory
for India" and a "tribute to all the innocent
people and police officers who lost their lives"
in the tragedy of November 2008.
Megha
Prasad, deputy bureau chief for the Indian news
channel 'Times Now', who reported live from
outside the Oberoi and Trident hotels where 33
people were killed, expressed surprise at the
clandestine execution of "foot soldier Kasab", but
told IPS that the execution may bring "temporary
closure to the victims of 26/11".
Still,
she echoed the sentiments of many when she added
that justice will only be delivered when the
"perpetrators and those who masterminded 26/11 are
brought to book."
Other experts have been
even less taken aback by the incident, which came
just one day after India, along with 39 other UN
member states, voted against a General Assembly
draft resolution calling for a non-binding
moratorium on executions.
"Kasab's hanging
was a foregone conclusion and surprised no one,"
Pervez Hoodbhoy, a peace activist and academic,
told IPS. "It had to be done, else mass murder
would have gone unpunished."
"That the
Mumbai attacks were carried out by a
Pakistan-based militant group can surprise no one
because, literally for decades, groups such as LeT
and Jaish-e-Muhammad, have publicly declared that
they exist only to attack India, anywhere and at
any time," he added.
Indeed, Hafiz
Muhammad Saeed, founder of the banned LeT, is a
prominent public figure in Pakistan, often seen at
political rallies delivering vitriolic sermons,
directed primarily at the United States
government.
Hoodbhoy's analysis, shared by
many others, highlights the sticky situation the
government is now in.
For years, according
to Askari, the most popular narrative within
official political circles has been that Pakistan
is a victim of terrorism. "(Most) officials
attribute terrorist activities and violence in
Pakistan to Pakistan's foreign adversaries. That
means that they do not give much credence to
domestic sources of Pakistan's problems."
Zohra Yusuf, chairperson of the
independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan,
told IPS that this makes a strong case "for
Pakistan to adopt a credible, meaningful policy.
Pakistan has to go after terrorists - and not back
off only because India is asking it to act. Almost
all terrorist attacks anywhere in the world seem
to have some Pakistani 'connection', from the US
embassy bombing in Kenya" to the September 11,
2001 attacks on the US twin towers, she said.
"The world understands how difficult it is
to tackle militants," added Ashaar Rehman,
resident editor for 'Dawn' in Lahore, "but is in
no mood to play the understanding elder when its
own existence is on line."
But for now, he
said, Pakistan seems either unable or unwilling to
tackle rising militancy.
Hoodbhoy pointed
out that most militant groups had, at some point
in their existence, received the support of
Pakistani intelligence agencies. "While some still
do (accept the support), others have pointed their
guns against their former benefactors," he said.
Many experts believe Pakistan should make
public some of the answers they must already have
gathered through their investigations such as: who
masterminded the the 2008 attacks and why, where
and how the gunmen were trained, and most
importantly, how these activities went 'unnoticed'
in Pakistan.
But the government has proven
it will be slow to act. It took a long time for
Pakistan to even admit that the Mumbai attacks
were planned on its soil, and it continues to deny
any official involvement.
While seven of
the alleged masterminds were charged in 2009, more
evidence is needed to convict them, the government
insists.
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