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| India gives Pakistan ‘evidence’ of Mumbai attacks |
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Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Foreign secretary says Pakistan examining information
By Mariana Baabar & Amir Mir
ISLAMABAD: India handed over to Pakistan on Monday what it termed evidence of the Mumbai terror attacks. The ‘information dossier’ was first handed over to Pakistan’s High Commissioner Shahid Malik by Indian Secretary for External Affairs Shivshankar Menon in New Delhi.
Then the Indian high commissioner met the Pakistan foreign secretary in Islamabad and handed over an information dossier on the status of investigations thus far by India into the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the Foreign Ministry said.
The much awaited ‘evidence’ includes telephonic transcripts between the gunmen and their LeT commanders, decoded skype calls over the Internet made between the gunmen in the Taj and Oberoi hotels and a Jewish centre with their LeT controllers, weapons recovered after the 26/11 carnage and the interrogation report of Ajmal Kasab. According to the report, Kasab has said he was trained in marine commando skills before being sent to Mumbai.
Interior Ministry sources, while sharing some of the evidence on the condition of anonymity, said the dossier included [intercepted] telephonic conversation between the Mumbai attackers and two LeT commanders — chief operational commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and his right-hand man Zarrar Shah, who have already been arrested by the Pakistani authorities and are being interrogated.
The evidence also includes decoded Skype calls over the Internet that were made between the Mumbai attackers holed up inside the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels and a Jewish centre in Mumbai with their LeT controllers, who were allegedly operating from Pakistan and who have been identified as Abu Hamza and Abu Kafa.
According to the sources, who literally laughed off the India dossier, said the evidence further includes a list of items recovered from a motorboat which was hijacked by the attackers to make their way to Mumbai. The list talks about a bag of flour from Karachi, Medicam toothpaste, tubes of the Touch Me shaving cream, toilet paper manufactured by ‘Zik Brothers, Karachi’ and T-shirts with ‘made in Pakistan’ labels. The evidence further talks about a Thuraya satellite phone found on the boat which was used to make several calls to Lahore and Karachi. The phone set was manufactured by a Dubai-based company and purchased from a Karachi-based dealer.
The dossier also includes names and photographs of the ten Mumbai attackers. Their names are mentioned as Ajmal Amir Kasab, Ismail Khan, Abdul Rehman Bara, Abu Ali, Abu Sohaib, Abu Umer, Babar Imran, Abu Aksa, Fahad Ullah and Abdul Rehman Chhota.
The dossier carries detailed information about Ajmal Kasab, insisting that he was a Pakistani national who was born on July 13, 1987 in Faridkot village of Okara district in the Punjab. His father, Mohammad Amir Kasab, reportedly belongs to the underprivileged Kasai caste and runs a Dahi Puri snack cart. Ajmal’s mother, Noori, has been described as a homemaker.
As per the dossier, Ajmal is the third of the family’s five children whose elder brother Afzal lives near the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore. His sister, Rukayya Husain, is stated to be married locally. Ajmal’s younger siblings include 14-year-old Surayya and 11-year-old Munir. However, the Interior Ministry sources maintained that the evidence provided to Pakistan largely seems to be cooked up and chiefly aimed at maligning the country.
There is nothing new in the ‘information dossier’ Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal handed over to Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir at the Foreign Office, Western diplomatic sources told The News.
Meanwhile, Pakistan said it was examining the contents of the ‘information’ passed on to it and will ěevaluateî it. However, it proposed setting up of a joint commission to be headed by the respective national security advisers.
“Most of it has been leaked to the media anyway, so there was nothing new. So many people have a copy of the dossier now, that we will not be surprised if we see it in the media here. We understand that Pakistan has made quite a headway in its own investigations and this is a good sign”, the sources maintained.
Monday saw New Delhi on a diplomatic offensive with first External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee calling Pakistan’s involvement in the Mumbai blasts an “unpardonable crime”. He said, “We have today handed over to Pakistan evidence of the links with elements in Pakistan of the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008.”
Indian Secretary for External Affairs Shivshankar Menon clarified at a press conference that they had given Pakistan ‘information’ and not ‘evidence’.
Mukherjee has been making different statements regarding giving evidence to Pakistan that Monday’s attempt was a damp squib. First he said that India was not bound to give any evidence to Pakistan. Later, he said that they had already given evidence to Pakistan. This was followed by a statement that they could not give any evidence to Pakistan because they were still in the midst of collecting it.
Also, Salman Bashir informed the Indian high commissioner that Pakistan was carrying out its own investigations and was determined to uncover the full facts pertaining to the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
“It was also Pakistan’s desire to deal effectively with the issue of terrorism, which was a regional phenomenon and required close cooperation. The government of Pakistan will evaluate the information provided by India so far”, the foreign secretary was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the Foreign Office.
The foreign secretary reiterated Pakistan’s constructive proposals for joint investigations and its readiness to send a high-level delegation as well as constituting a joint commission. “It was underscored that Pakistan and India must cooperate in the investigation with a view to gathering evidence that was legally suitable,” said the statement.
Satyabrata Pal told the foreign secretary in their meeting that the Indian government had expressed the hope that it will receive cooperation of the government of Pakistan in carrying out further investigations.
The Indian External Affairs Ministry will also be briefing all heads of missions based here by tomorrow. Indian ambassadors and high commissioners will be doing the same in their host countries, he said.
Meanwhile, the FBI is also expected to take up the evidence that they have gathered with the Pakistan government. “The FBI will pursue the evidence gathered there (in Mumbai) and they will eventually take the evidence to Pakistan because under our law, if Americans are killed, the US itself has a duty to pursue all avenues to the bottom of it,” US Ambassador in Delhi David C Mulford told reporters.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
