The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers (2nd Edition) 9781138563537, 9780429486364

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The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks Critical questions remain unanswered on the events of the coldblooded and devastating terror attacks in Mumbai on 26 November 2008. Investigative and introspective, this book offers a lucid and graphic account of the ill-fated day and traces the changing dynamics of terror in South Asia. Using new insights, it explores South Asia’s regional dynamics of antagonism, the ever-present challenge to the frontiers of India, Pakistan and the terrorism question, the strife in Afghanistan and the self-serving selective US ‘war on terror’. Including a new Afterword, this second edition will greatly interest those in defence, security and strategic studies, politics and international relations, peace and conflict studies, media and journalism, and South Asian studies as well as the general reader. Saroj Kumar Rath is a historian and specialist on terrorism in South Asia, and teaches at the Department of History, Sri Aurobindo College (Evening), University of Delhi, India. A member of NATO-Academia dialogue, he was formerly with Hosei University, Tokyo and Deakin University, Melbourne. He has been assisting home government and international organizations in understanding the causes of extremism in South Asia and working towards possible solutions. A regular speaker at global security forums, he is a visiting faculty member at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey, Mexico and Vice President of the Ottawa-based Alternative Perspective and Global Concern.

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Saroj Kumar Rath’s Fragile Frontiers stands head and shoulders above other books on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Despite his thorough research the intimate details and his easy style make this book read like a thriller. But the seriousness of the facts about the terrorists’ strength and India’s unpreparedness that he has unearthed makes it compulsory reading for anybody interested in India’s security. Nayan Chanda Editor-in-chief, Yale Global Online and author of Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warriors Shaped Globalization, Yale University, New Haven Saroj Kumar Rath is that rare breed of thinker who combines the capacity to capture the details and immediacy of a significant event the way a journalist can, but who can also analyze and assess that event’s importance, both nationally and geopolitically, only the way a seasoned analyst and academic can. In this book, he has brought new and compelling insight into the Mumbai massacre. David Plott Managing Editor Global Asia, Seoul In Fragile Frontiers, Saroj Kumar Rath painstakingly reconstructs the tumultuous days of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, from its initial stages to the attack itself to the highly publicized trial. He cuts through the confusion and misreporting to deliver a clear and sober look at one of the major geopolitical events of the new century, making it essential reading for scholars and the policy community. Anand Gopal Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow New America Foundation, Washington DC Formerly with The Wall Street Journal Saroj Kumar Rath has ventured into the tricky territory of contemporary history and the even trickier field of terrorism in this account of the Mumbai attacks of 2008. Fragile Frontiers will attract debate, vigorous discussion and no doubt disagreement on both the causes of terrorism and the specific motivations that led to the Mumbai attacks. David Walker Eminent Historian and Chair of Australian Studies Peking University, Beijing

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The book is refreshingly honest, thoroughly researched, and goes deep under the skin of the event with toothcomb precision. What sets its writing apart and above all the others that have come in the wake of the event is the incisive inquiry and the detail. The Hindu The book goes on to raise several questions over the way the investigation into the 26/11 attacks was handled, and the very shallow chargesheet filed in the case. The Times of India According to The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks, the prosecution relieved the real criminals behind the actual crime. The name of ISI does not figure in the chargesheet and the LeT is also scantily defined. Pakistan Observer Most well-written book on the Mumbai terror attacks. Rediff.com

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The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks Fragile Frontiers

SECOND EDITION With a New Afterword

Saroj Kumar Rath

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Second edition published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Saroj Kumar Rath The right of Saroj Kumar Rath to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published in India by Routledge 2014 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book. ISBN: 978-1-138-56353-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-48636-4 (ebk) Typeset in Stempel Garamond by Apex CoVantage, LLC

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Contents Abbreviations

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Glossary

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Foreword by Professor Chikako Taya

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Acknowledgements

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Maps

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Introduction

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1. India’s Fragile Frontiers through the Prism of History

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2. The LeT: From Regional to Global

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3. Prelude to Mumbai

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4. Mumbai Outraged

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5. The After Effect

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6. The Motives behind Mumbai

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7. The Prosecution

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8. The Afghan Conflict, Pakistan Conundrum and India’s Future Security

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Afterword to this Edition

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Notes

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Select Bibliography

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Index

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Abbreviations ATS BJP CBI CIA CrPC CST DEA DNI FATA FBI FIA GPS HHTI HI HuA HuJI HM HuM IB ICTY IED IM IPC IPS ISI ISRO J&K JCE JeM JI JKLF JKSLF JuD JUI LeJ

Anti-Terrorist Squad Bharatiya Janata Party Central Bureau of Investigation Central Intelligence Agency Criminal Procedure Code Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Drug Enforcement Administration Director of National Intelligence Federally Administered Tribal Areas Federal Bureau of Investigation Federal Investigation Agency Global Positioning System Handheld Thermal Imager Hizb-e-Islami Harkat-ul-Ansar Harkat-ul Jihad-ul Islami Harkat-ul Mujahideen Hizb-ul Mujahideen Intelligence Bureau International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia Improvised Explosive Device Indian Mujahideen Indian Penal Code Indian Police Service Inter-Services Intelligence Indian Space Research Organization Jammu and Kashmir Joint Criminal Enterprise Jaish-e-Mohammad Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Jammu and Kashmir Student Liberation Front Jamat-ud Dawa Jammat-ul-Ulema-i-Islami Lashkar-e-Jhangvi

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LeT LoC MDI MEA MI MLA NAL NATO NBW NDA NDC NIA NLI NSA NSG NWFP PISCES PoK POTA QRT RAW RDX ROP SAG SIMI SRPF SSP TADA TNSM TTP UAPA ULFA UN UNSCR VoIP VT

Abbreviations

Lashkar-e-Taiba Line of Control Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad Ministry of External Affairs Military Intelligence Member of Legislative Assembly National Awami League North Atlantic Treaty Organization Non-Bailable Warrant National Defence Academy National Defence College National Investigation Agency Northern Light Infantry National Security Advisor National Security Guard North West Frontier Province Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Prevention of Terrorists and Disruptive Activities Act Quick Reaction Team Research and Analysis Wing Research Department Explosive Royal Omani Police Special Action Group Students Islamic Movement of India State Reserve Police Force Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Unlawful Activities Prevention Act United Liberation Front of Assam United Nations United Nations Security Council Resolution Voice over Internet Protocol Victoria Terminus

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Glossary Ahl-e-Hadith

Al Badr

Al Barq

Al Jihad Al Umar Mujahideen

Al-Fatah Al-Mansoorian Al-Nasaryeen al-Qaeda Azad Beit-ul Mujahid Berelvi

Bhai Wasul Daura-e-Ama Bharatiya Janata Bollywood Chhota Daura-e-Khasa

Persons who follow the words, deeds, acts, approval or disapproval ascribed to Prophet Mohammad. Al, a prefix, means ‘the’. Badr is the name of the first full military confrontation between the Muslims and the pagans at Mecca in the second year of Hijrah (624 CE). The winged ass. Inspired from the winged jackass on which Prophet Mohammad flew from Mecca to Jerusalem. The struggle or the holy war. The Holy Warriors of Umar. Umar bin Al Khatab was one of the best companions of Prophet Mohammad, who became the second Khalif (leader) after the death of the Prophet. The Conquest. The Victorious. The Victorious. The base. Liberate. House of Holy Warriors. Named after a small town, Bareilly, in Uttar Pradesh, India, where its proponent Ahmad Raza Khan lived and popularized the movement on the basis of the tradition of Prophet Mohammad. Receive general training (tour). People of Bharat (India). The Mumbai film industry, a portmanteau of Bombay and Hollywood. Literal meaning small, also used to refer to the youngest in the family. Major Training.

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Rukka Daura-e-Ribat Daura-e-Sufa Dawa

Khairaat Falah-w-Bahbood Deobandi

Hanafi Sunni Difa-i-Pakistan Dukhtareen-eTaiba Dukhtran-eMillat Falah-e-Insaniyat Fidayeen Ghazwa Harkat-ul Ansar

Harkat-ul Jihad-ul Islami Harkat-ul Mujahideen Harkat-ulMujahideen Al-Alami Hizb-e-Islami Hizb-ul Mujahideen

Glossary

Note. To station and stay in place for training. Religious training and proselytizing. Literally means ‘call’, and in this sense, it refers to calling to the Truth through preaching and propagation. Charity. Welfare. Followers of Deoband, named after a place in Uttar Pradesh, India. A Sunni religious movement and adherent of the Hanafi school of Sunni jurisprudence. One of the four Sunni jurisprudences. People of the tradition of Prophet Mohammad. Defence of Pakistan. Daughter of the pure. Daughter of the nation. Human welfare. One who sacrifices himself/herself. A battle or invasion. Literally, activities of the helpers or supporters. People of Madinah who responded to the Prophet’s call to Islam, becoming Muslims, and welcomed him to Madina when he immigrated there from Makkah are known as the Ansar. Activities of holy Islamic warriors. Activities of the holy warriors. Activities of the global holy warriors.

Islamic party. Party of the holy warriors.

Glossary

Idara Khidmat-eKhalaq Ikhwan-ulMuslimeen Ittehad-e-Islami Ibn-e-Tayamiah Jaan-e-Fidai Jaish-eMohammad Jamaat-ul Furqaan Jamaat-e-Islami Jammat-ulUlema-i-Islami Jihad

Kafir

Khuruj Lal Masjid

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Service of the women, children and old. Brothers of Muslims. Islamic Unity. Those who are committed to the great cause. Sacrifice of life. Army of Mohammad. Organization of the Criterion (between truth and falsehood). The Islamist party. The party of the Islamic clergy. A fairly controversial Arabic term used 41 times in the Holy Quran with reflexive/ subjective meanings. Clerics describe the meaning as a personal struggle in the way of Allah to keep evil away from oneself; critics translate it as Holy War against the Kafir. Peace-loving Islamists call it ‘preserving oneself from sin and disbelief as the greater (akbar) Jihad’. However, militants often espouse jihad as ‘going to war to defend Islam, adherents of Islam, their property or occupation of a Muslim or Islamic country’. An Arabic word meaning non-believer or infidel. Used 470 times in the Holy Quran but, over time, the word developed negative connotations and in South Asia, it is derogatory! Indian Muslims normally avoid publicly calling Hindus as Kafir as this often leads to conflict. In 2012, Deoband clergies tried to clarify that Hindus are not Kafir. Western scholars only interpret the literal meaning and not the underlying sense of the word. Revolt. Red Mosque.

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Lashkar-e-Jabbar Lashkar-e-Omar Lashkar-e-Taiba Lathi

Madrassa

Maharaja Mahaz-e-Azadi Markaz Dawa-ul-Irshad Maulavi Mohajir

Mujahedeen Mullah Nizam-e-Mustafa Paasbaan-e-AhleHadith Paasban-eKashmir Panchasheel Pathan

Qaid-e-Azam Roza

Glossary

Also known as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (Army of Jhang, a region in Pakistan). Army of Omar. Army of the Pure. Literally, stick or baton. In South Asia, lathi has a broad meaning as it is equated with the most reliable backer/supporter at a time of need and distress. Islamic seminaries where, apart from education (mostly religious), food and shelter are also provided to the students. Great King. Front for Freedom. The Center for Proselytization and Preaching. Sunni religious teacher. Literally, migrant. After the partition of India, those Muslims who migrated to Pakistan from India could not integrate with the indigenous Pakistanis and are called mohajir. Plural of Mujahid, one who wages jihad. A Muslim scholar, educated in Islamic law. Rule of God. Defender of Ahle-hadith. Defender of Kashmir. A Sanskrit word meaning five virtues. The origin of this mysterious word which cannot be traced in any known language, but it is believed to mean either or both the rudder or the mast of a ship. Also the Paktues and Pakthas of the Vedas. The Afghans call themselves Pakhtan from which the change to Pahtana and again to Pathan is easy. Great Leader. Roza is an Urdu word which means fasting.

Glossary

Sachar Committee report

Salafi

Shahadat Sher-e-Kashmir Shuhada Shura Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan Takfiri Taliban

Taqlid

Tehreek-eHurmat-e-Rasool Tehreek-e-Nafaze-Shariat-eMohammadi

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In March 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed a high level committee to prepare a report on the Social, Economic and Educational Status of Indian Muslims. The 7-member committee, headed by Justice Rajinder Sachar (retired) submitted its report to the Prime Minister in November 2006. The word ‘salaf’ means predecessor or forefather. The first generation and the two generations that followed after the Prophet Mohammad passed away are called al-salaf — the predecessors. As per Salafism the first three generations of Muslims were pure and unadulterated, and hence their interpretation of the Quran and the Sunnah is best and must be followed. Martyrdom. Lion of Kashmir. Martyr/witness, evidence. Literal meaning consultation, other meaning council of elders. Soldiers and companions of Pakistan. The action of claiming that a person or a group is Kafir. Plural of Talib meaning student or someone who requests a thing that is Talibul Ilm, meaning Requester of Knowledge. Means ‘emulation’ or ‘copying’ another individual. In Islam, Muslims do taqlid of a scholar who they believe preaches the correct thing in fiqh (jurisprudence — religious law). They do this by following his opinions concerning fiqh issues. Movement for defending the honour of the Messenger. Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law.

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Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Tehrik-ulMujahideen Ummah

Wahhabis

Glossary

Movement of Students of Pakistan. Movement of the holy warriors. Means a community or a people. It is used in reference to the community of believers or Muslims across the globe because they are brothers and sisters in Islam. Inspired by Muhamad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Wahhabism advocates purging Islam of what is considered impurities. Wahhabi theology treats the Quran and Hadith as the only fundamental and authoritative texts.

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Foreword I have been asked to write a Foreword to this book, and have much pleasure in doing so. In late autumn 2008, when I saw the spectacular scene of flames and smoke billowing from the colonial-style Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai and the triumphant operationalization of the organized systematic attacks by terrorists on TV, I was astonished. Thanks to my long professional career, I instinctively felt that a big organization must be behind the crime. This supposedly new type of crime made me think about the structural similarity it shared with war crimes like ethnic cleansing, committed to attain an ‘ethnically clean’ land. And I started wondering about the applicability of Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE) in the Mumbai conspiracy. JCE is an international criminal law notion applied mainly in war crimes and can implicate someone powerful behind the scenes who would otherwise escape criminal liability in a situation such as conspiracy, or aiding and abetting. I shared my wish to undertake a research study on the Mumbai attacks with the former Japanese ambassador in India, Chusei Yamada, and he kindly introduced me to Dr Rath, a specialist in terrorism, who knows the region very well. In April 2010, when the scorching summer sun was blazing down on India, I landed in Delhi to meet Dr Rath. Since then, for three long years, we worked together, visiting the crime scenes in Mumbai, meeting the special public prosecutor of the Mumbai trial and touring other parts of India under contestation between India and Pakistan, including Kashmir. Along with Dr Rath, I endeavoured to unravel ‘the purpose behind the Mumbai terror attacks’. When we put this important question to the special public prosecutor his explanation, which asserted that it was carried out with the intention of obtaining an upper hand and forcing India into a settlement of the Kashmir problem, was not persuasive. I was puzzled to hear that opinion, because terrorist attacks against India, in my opinion, would further complicate the Kashmir issue. Dr Rath and I agreed to disagree with the special public prosecutor

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and other such voices. Our understanding about the purpose of the Mumbai attacks differed. We found out that the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is the terrorist group most obedient to Pakistan’s intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). But when it came to 2008, seven years after the beginning of the Afghan War, even within the ranks of the LeT there arose some elements who were opposed to the ISI’s official cooperation with the US and joined the fight against the country with other militant groups. The ISI, which was playing a double game, had plunged itself into a difficult situation where the agency could not even handle the ever-loyal LeT. In that circumstance, some elements of the ISI contemplated diverting the attention of those extremists among the LeT from the Afghan War to India, the conventional foe, by launching the Mumbai attacks. Planning, training and other preparations for the Mumbai attacks were carried out by those elements of the ISI. In one line, the purpose of the Mumbai attacks was extraction of dissatisfaction-gas from extremist elements of the LeT and at the same time to maintain the ISI’s pro-US image in America’s war on terror. This revelation invites us to the next question: ‘Why were there so many terrorist organizations established and flourishing in South Asia and how have they finally become so powerful as to usurp governmental organizations?’ Then Dr Rath and I were in tandem with each other to tackle many broad questions on the hazardously complicated Indo-Pak relations beyond Kashmir and Pakistan’s troubled history, affected by the Soviet–Afghan War and the US war on terror, along with issues on the development of the Mumbai attacks’ investigation. For the last 35 years, Afghanistan has been ravaged by war, where Pakistan is pursuing an intriguing ‘strategic depth’ policy. The spillover effect of the 35-year war, coupled with the ISI’s strategy to support militants and extremists, has radicalized Pakistan in a comprehensive way. By the time the US compelled Pakistan to support its war on terror, its ‘strategic depth’ policy was in tatters. And because of this U-turn, Pakistan ended up fighting the very militants it had fathered and nurtured for so long. ISI strategists have been caught unawares by the impending explosive situations, at the forefront of which Pakistan is now standing. For three years, Dr Rath has patiently pieced together the slowly trickling and gradually developing source materials by weighing the veracity of the information through his regional wisdom. Finally

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he has produced this multi-dimensional analysis on the Mumbai terror attacks, Fragile Frontiers, which also incorporates the abovementioned developments in Pakistan prominantly. Fragile Frontiers is a different work, which eruditely examines the historical nexus existing between terror acts like the Mumbai attacks and the historically convoluted Indo-Pak relations, compared to the writings of Westerners and outsiders to this region on similar topics. Dr Rath has certainly brought to his work not only knowledge and sympathy, but much care and research. Professor Chikako Taya Professor of Hosei University, Faculty of Law, Tokyo Former Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, The Hague Former Prosecutor of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office, Tokyo

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cademic research on contemporary topics is often stymied by the inevitable gap between the researcher’s quest to settle the myriad number of questions and the daunting obstacles in assembling source materials. Such gaps, most of the time insurmountable, by less resourceful academics, strike a fatal blow to the quest of the researcher who swallows agony before withdrawing from such enterprising research. Therefore, thinking journalists and governing officials — with access, affluence, articulation, academic interest and resourcefulness — have colonized the domain of research and publication on contemporary topics and developed the sector into a profitable trade. Alas, even the follow-up cold calculated journal articles on such topics also often carry the name of persons from those two tribes. This new development has reversed the trend where academics have to dispute and quote the academic works of untrained but very capable journalists and governing officials and not the other way around. Academicians were never ever under such threat. My endeavour is to remain engaged in this ‘battle for space’ and only readers will decide the verdict. This work is a transparent presentation of the prevailing institutional malaise of South Asia, an analysis of the inclination and capabilities of state institutions to rationalize tyranny and an exposure of the façade of deceptive diplomatic interactions among the US, India and Pakistan. I have ventured to create an investigative and academic, yet lucid and readable portrayal of terrorism in South Asia centred around the Mumbai attacks. The work is not a mute description of the past alone but a detailed explanation of the most basic questions and an interesting unravelling of some of the highly complicated puzzles. So critics will doubtlessly have their own opinion on such an endeavour. When I was working as support staff (the actual work at times was far inferior to mere support) at the self-effacing environment inside the high walls of the Japanese Embassy in New Delhi, renowned sociologist Professor P. Radhakrishnan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies often used to ask me uncomfortable questions about my research, study and its use. My clarifications never impressed the eminent sociologist. His questions and my agonies continued until Professor Chikako Taya sought to use my expertise for her research

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on terrorism in India–Pakistan–Afghanistan. I left the permanent, secure embassy job to assist, learn and outwit Professor Taya and embrace uncertainties. Both these professors have encouraged me to think through the most unconventional ways and with their profound wisdom influenced the writing of the book from its infancy to end. This book owes nearly everything to both. The gruesome Mumbai attacks traumatized not only people from India but across the globe. Nearly all leading law enforcement agencies around the world sent observers to understand the attacks. Many research institutions and universities employed scholars to dissect the attacks and the trial. Under such trying circumstances, this study was commissioned and I had the chance to meet some of the outstanding persons whose expertise and cooperation were vital for the research inquiries. To get a sense of the attacks, I undertook on-the-spot inquiries at all the nine places of the attacks in Mumbai, took a boat ride near Cuff Parade following the trail of the terrorists and went from court to court to follow the trials. From the Esplanade Session Court of Mumbai the matter was sent to the Special Session Court at Arthur Road Jail. Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam kindly allowed my wife Mony and me to visit the Arthur Road Jail Court, where we had the chance to briefly meet the investigating officer of the Mumbai case. After the final judgement of the Special Session Court, the matter reached the Bombay High Court, where there was not much spark in the argument. However, high drama awaited in Delhi where two courts, Patiala House Court No. 10 and the Supreme Court of India at Court No. 7, within a distance of a few hundred metres, were hearing the arguments — at times on confrontational and contradictory lines. Nearly four years after the Mumbai attacks, when the Delhi Police arrested an accused, Abu Jundal, the service of two new courts — Tis Hazari Court in Delhi and Esplanade Court in Mumbai — were sought by the law enforcing agencies to take the matter forward. This work could not have been completed without the generous support of several individuals. A simple, low-profile but highly impactful journalist, Mustafa Plumber, the Mumbai correspondent of The Indian Express, was instrumental and helpful in more than one way. I owe a lot to Mumbai Advocate Izaj Naqvi, whose cooperation helped me understand the case. Shailesh Gaikwad, the prolific Hindustan Times journalist from Mumbai, was most articulate and open to offer his journalistic expertise for this work. I thank Dhananjay Mahapatra, senior journalist of The Times of India for his guidance, which helped

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me understand the intricacies of the case. Josy Joseph, the investigative journalist of The Times of India was always ready to guide me while shaping the monograph. I thank Saikat Datta, the Outlook journalist, for his arguments, articulation and cooperation. Many people who have made it possible for me to gather source materials essential for the content of this book must remain unnamed. They allowed me a peek into the inner sanctum of a secret world. Their cooperation was not without risk, at times to their careers and at others to their lives. Professor Chintamani Mahapatra, Omita Goyal, Dr Manoranjan Mishra, Dr Vir Narayan and Dr Vijay Sridhar have contributed to enrich the work in their own special ways. This work had to sail through the hands, heads and hearts of as many as six reviewers from various organizations. A note of thanks to all, especially the two reviewers from Routledge India, who contributed to the erudition and sparkle of this manuscript. The present shape of the book received substantial support from the editorial team at Routledge, New Delhi. My father Dadhigana Rath encouraged me in a novel unspoken way. All praise to Mony, my life partner, who was my shadow during those frustrating chases of original documents and final writing of the monograph. Mony wordlessly withstood my numerous unnecessary flare ups, which used to occur liberally because of my failure to get hold of source materials. On one occasion on a sunny February afternoon, while hopping back and forth from the Bombay High Court to Esplanade, an old Parsi gentleman had to intervene at Azad Maidan to restrain us from fighting, as he thought our marital differences were now out in the open. We took his counsel without informing him of the background. Professor Shiv Kumar Choudhury, a cardiac surgeon at AIIMS, New Delhi and Dr Kaushal Kant Mishra, an orthopaedic surgeon, have not only always raised the bar for me but provided every conceivable support to help me come out with the work. Amidst the writing of the book, the birth of Rigsadi, the stunning charmer, our son, brought immeasurable joy.

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Maps Map 1: Route from Karachi to Mumbai

Source: All maps prepared by Ranjana Lashkar. Maps not to scale. Note: Terrorists received sea training at Karachi but they started their journey from Kajhar Creek near Keti Bandar, 150 km south-east of Karachi. Keti Bandar had special significance for the terrorists as it was built from the ruins of ancient seaport Debal where Muhammad bin Qasim and his army arrived from Iraq to attack Hindustan in 711 CE.

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Map 2: Landing and Travel Routes of the Terrorists

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus

Taj Mahal Palace & Hotel

Route and Mode of Transport Cuffe Parade (Landed) to Badhwar Park (Walked) Route 1 - Cuffe Parade to Oberoi Trident Hotel (Waterway) Route 2 - Badhwar Park to Taj Mahal Palace and Hotel (Taxi) Route 3 - Badhwar Park to Leopold Cafe (Taxi) To Taj Mahal Palace and Hotel (Walking) Route 4 - Badhwar to CST (Taxi) To Cama and Albless Hospital (Walking) To Girgaum Chowpatty (By a forcibly stolen car) Route 5 - Badhwar Park to Nariman House (Walking)

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Map 3: Bombing Sites of the 2008 Mumbai Attacks

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus

Known sites of attack, bombing and skirmishes

Note:

Not only did ten terrorists from south-east Karachi reach seven destinations inside South Mumbai without any restriction but also they were pleasantly surprised to face little resistance during the initial hours of the attacks.

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Map 4: Home Towns of the Ten Mumbai Attackers

Name Ismail Khan Ajmal Kasab Shoib Javed Hafiz Arshad Naser Abdur Rehman Fahadullah Babar Imran Nazir

Attacked

Place of Origin

CST CST Taj Hotel Taj Hotel Leopold Cafe & Taj Hotel Leopold Cafe & Taj Hotel Oberoi – Trident Hotel Oberoi – Trident Hotel Nariman House Nariman House

Dera Ismail Khan Faridkot Shakkargarh Okara Multan Faisalabad Arifwala Okara Multan Faisalabad

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Map 5: LeT Training Camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Note:

The Mumbai attackers and other LeT terrorists received indoctrination, training and support from these training camps.

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Introduction Œ

On 26 November 2008, on a moonless evening, 10 strangers

descended into Mumbai after a gutsy and risky 600 nautical miles’ sea voyage from Karachi.1 They were not the ubiquitous tourists or aspiring Bollywood actors the vivacious and bustling metropolis receives every day. Although in the peak of their youth, neither the nightlife of the city nor the breezy evening wind from the Arabian Sea drew these strangers into Mumbai. All in their early 20s, they were hardened terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), one of the most organized, disciplined and dreaded terrorist organizations of Pakistan. They unloaded their weapons and explosive-laden rucksacks from the fishing trawler, which had brought them up to four to five nautical miles off the Mumbai coast, loaded the bags into an inflated dinghy and paused to catch their breaths for some time, before reaching the Mumbai shore and fanning into the metropolis to create mayhem.2 They came to the city to kill its citizens and create a reign of terror before they themselves decidedly and unfailingly got killed.3 Their indoctrinated desires were not fully gratified however. One terrorist out of the 10 did not die. The Mumbai police apprehended him instead, denying him the promised paradise and, worse still, kept him alive long enough to tell the tale. Astonishingly, a mere 10 terrorists managed to successfully attack nine locations in the city. As video cameras rolled in on 26 November and transmitted the live telecast, what stunned the world was that a mere handful of terrorists took the 18 million inhabitants of the megacity to ransom for three long days (emphasis author). The frightening display of murder and mayhem, the chilling mediatized operationalization of the attacks, and the fiendish massacre rivalled the 9/11 attacks on the United States (US). History books are full of narrations of terrorist attacks, grand and grotesque, but the Mumbai assault, often referred to as the 26/11 attacks, was the most horrific and durable on-camera cruelty and killing of innocents anywhere in the world.4 This assertion is verifiable. The Mumbai attacks stand alone if one compares them with other major terrorist strikes around the world. The duration of the 9/11

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The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

attacks was 1 hour 17 minutes. The July 2005 London serial bombings continued for half an hour and the 2002 Bali and 2004 Madrid serial bombings ended within one minute. The 2006 Mumbai serial bombings went on for 30 minutes and the 1998 Nairobi attack consisted of one explosion. The Moscow and Beslan hostage crises of 2002 and 2004 continued for three days each; however, except for the bloody denouement of both these crises, the initial days were largely deathless. The casualties in some of these cases were higher than the Mumbai attacks but unlike 26/11, the unfortunate victims of the other attacks were neither incapacitated nor tortured by the terrorists before their death. Details of Voice over Internet Protocol calls between the LeT terrorists and their bosses in Pakistan provide chilling accounts of the remorseless efficiency with which the massacre of innocents was choreographed.5 I would like to clarify here that this book is not advocating one set of deaths over the others. In February 1941, during the Second World War, several Australian Air Force officers were captured by Japanese soldiers at the Laha Airfield in the Ambon Island, north of Australia. All the officers were beheaded by the Japanese soldiers.6 The Australian Government sent letters of regret to the martyrs’ families, stating that their sons died ‘in circumstances that are an affront to civilization’. One of the victims’ parents, Oswald and May Walkers, wrote back to the government: ‘We are grieved about it but realize how much better [off our son was] not to have suffered in a horror camp’.7 The father of Isaac, another victim, wrote: ‘We should feel some degree of thankfulness that the time he spent in the hands of our inhuman adversary was very short, and that he was, therefore, spared a lot of suffering that other poor lads were called upon to endure ...’.8 The Mumbai attack victims were forced to endure long hours of suffering at the hands of their inhuman adversaries before succumbing to death. Therefore, they hold the dubious distinction of undergoing the longest audio-visualized torture and killings by terrorists. While the attacks were on, people across the world were anxiously scanning every possible source to get the slightest piece of information into the reasons for them — why the city of Mumbai was attacked, who were behind the attacks, and why had India failed to face, if not prevent, the attacks? These three questions, simple as they sound, tested the collaborative wisdom of the world in general and India in particular. The search for answers became tougher and murkier in subsequent days. The needle of suspicion immediately pointed

Introduction

3

towards Pakistan. India and Pakistan, the perennial rivals, got involved in a volley of allegations and counter-allegations, blame and counterblame, and exchange of uncomfortable dossiers and counter-dossiers.9 In Fragile Frontiers: The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks, I endeavour to examine these three fundamental questions with the explicit intention of providing irrefutable, convincing and unadulterated answers. Before the Mumbai assault, intrusion of armed militants from foreign lands was limited to the fringe provinces of the country such as Jammu and Kashmir (J&K)10 and West Bengal. The pattern of terrorism in mainland India was limited to detonation of bombs and abatement of divisive forces, mostly by Pakistan. The bomb detonation pattern was reiterated by the then Indian Home Minister L. K. Advani in 1998 when he informed the Parliament that ‘Delhi Police has been able to solve 36 bomb blasts incidents out of 40 with the arrest of 14 suspected militants, including 7 foreign nationals’.11 In 2002, another cabinet minister informed the Parliament that until August of that year, Indian security forces had seized more than 49,000 kg of explosives.12 Since 2001, there have been a series of bomb attacks all over India outside J&K. Cities like Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Rampur and Agartala were targeted before the Mumbai attacks. India also lost two prime ministers to terrorism. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was killed in a bomb blast while Prime Minister Indira Gandhi died after a barrage of gunshots from her armed bodyguards.13 Nevertheless, in none of these incidents did foreign fighters descend into mainland India with AK-47s or challenge the security forces. The Mumbai attacks were the first of their kind in mainland India, where armed militants successfully sneaked into a megacity to carry out their suicide strike. Pakistan-sponsored suicide terrorist missions of any scale, although devastating and appalling in their effect, were successfully circumvented, and later eliminated in or around 2004–05 by the Indian security forces within the boundary of J&K.14 With the successful execution of the 26/11 attacks, terrorists determinedly disturbed that calibrated restriction. The attack was spectacular for its sheer scale, length and impact. It was first of its kind where a handful of terrorists from a foreign country came with the specific purpose of waging war against India.15 The foolhardy act of bravado by such a small number of terrorists stunned the world. What was also amazing was the terror technique opted for by the terrorists, never applied previously in any part of the

4

The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

world. After the Mumbai attacks, the Taliban militants in Kabul replicated their modus operandi with Mumbai style of attacks in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012.16 Osama bin Laden’s effort to replicate Mumbailike attacks in the United Kingdom, France and Germany in 2010 was intercepted and pre-empted in time by German intelligence officials.17 The real question that needs to be answered is how the Mumbai terrorists managed to stun the world with their unique brand of terrorism and how they succeeded in subterfuging a whole nation. While the proceeding chapters answer these questions as well as why the terrorists chose Mumbai for the attack, it is obvious that the audacious attack was an impossibility ‘without the active, specialized, and comprehensive choreographic support and strong backing of state institutions’.18 The genesis of the attacks can be traced back to an immensely deeper and extremely intricate set of background events. Those incidents were largely connected with the 9/11 attacks and the developments in J&K. The United States attacked the Taliban-governed Afghanistan on 7 October 2001 and with this, it began its massive war against terrorism.19 Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was the mentor and backer of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the country, along with Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, were the only three in the world that recognized the Taliban government. In a quick turn of events, Pakistan ditched the Taliban to support the US war efforts in Afghanistan.20 Although the US quickly overwhelmed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Mullah Omar, the Taliban supreme leader, and Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, escaped the US bombings and fled from Afghanistan to settle in Pakistan.21 In the next two years, Mullah Omar and bin Laden regrouped their cadres and resumed their fight against the US–North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces and Pakistan in 2003. The Taliban, al-Qaeda and other militant groups targeted Pakistan because the country had switched support to the US. Therefore, the stage was set for a battle, ideological and armed, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, primarily between the US and its allies on one side and the Taliban and the myriad groups of militants on the other. Later, in 2009, explaining the reason behind the 9/11 attacks, one al-Qaeda commander revealed that al-Qaeda had ‘planned this battle which actually aimed to bring the US and its allies into this trap and swamp (Afghanistan)’.22 The war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan was a policy reversal of both the US and Pakistan because

Introduction

5

both the countries had supported terrorists in the past to achieve their state objectives. During the Afghan War from 1979 to 1989, the US and Pakistan had collectively fathered and nurtured many of the militant organizations they are now fighting.23 When the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center took place, India responded rapidly and decisively. US President George Bush telephoned Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 7 October 2001, well before the launch of the air strikes on Afghanistan, and informed him of essential details about the war.24 Prime Minister Vajpayee convened his key advisers and they quickly decided that India would offer its full support for the US war on terrorism.25Across the border, Pakistan’s dilemma after the attacks was particularly palpable. The Pakistani army and the ISI found themselves standing at a crossroads. The Pakistan army’s doctrine on national security rested on three pillars: ‘resisting Indian hegemony in the region and promotion of Kashmir cause’, ‘protecting and developing the nuclear programme’ and ‘promoting a pro-Pakistan government in Afghanistan’.26 Curiously, all the three interests of Pakistan were based on the comprehensive and subordinate support of Islamic forces and the militants. The US war in Afghanistan complicated the Pakistan army’s age-old doctrine of supporting non-state actors against its adversary. To overcome this doctrinal difficulty, the ISI devised a novel strategy and as per the plan, Pakistan ‘officially sanctioned [a] “double game”, where the country is playing both sides of the war all along’.27 Hence, Pakistan’s support of the US war in Afghanistan was not the promised U-turn that would end the army’s long-standing support to Islamic extremists but rather a short-term tactical move to appease the US and offset India’s hegemony.28 Strategic analysts in the Pakistan army opined that the Americans might leave Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul, as they had done in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. For Pakistan, playing the ‘double game’ has never been an easy task. When then Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf was trying to balance the situation by giving equal support to the militants and the US, the militants and religious lobbies in Pakistan got impatient. The balancing act faltered when, much to the disbelief of the ISI and the terrorists, the US crushed the Taliban and refused to leave the ground.29 The new circumstance lengthened the battle between the

6

The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

US-led troops and the militants. Two new developments disturbed all Pakistan’s calculations. The first was that almost all their militant organizations rushed to Afghanistan or supported their Afghan compatriots’ war effort against the US, even by leaving other theatres of war such as Kashmir; and the second was that barring the LeT, all other Pakistani militant organizations and even al-Qaeda trained their guns against Pakistan. Meanwhile, back in India, encouraged by the success of the 9/11 attacks, Kashmir-oriented militants, primarily the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the LeT, attacked the legislative assembly building of J&K on 1 October 2001 and the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001.30 After a three-year decline in militant fatalities from 1996 to 1999 in Kashmir, the numbers steadily climbed from 1999 through 2002. Using spectacularly violent attacks, the LeT and its fellow Pakistani jihadists helped spur another cycle of violence.31 But the militants’ fight in Kashmir was getting increasingly untenable, as by the year 2003, terrorist organizations had already fought for 14 long years in Kashmir. Kashmir had a long history of terrorism but since the late 1980s, incidents of violence had escalated phenomenally. English historian Lord Acton once said ‘Knowledge of the past is the surest and safest emancipation’. It is pertinent to look into a little bit of Kashmir’s past. According to an authorized biography of General Akhtar Abdul Rehman, the ISI Director-general who commanded its campaign in Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan war, General Zia-ul-Haq entrusted the task of planning the jihad in Kashmir to the amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami of J&K, Maulana Sadruddin.32 During the 1980s, a Kashmiri version of Jamaat-e-Islami had begun to emerge on the Indian side of Kashmir. On 31 July 1988, a series of powerful explosions rocked Srinagar and Jammu. The blasts are usually taken to mark the start of the ‘Kashmir insurgency’.33 Just before the blasts in the month of April 1988, Pakistan’s dictator General Zia-ul Haq had addressed a meeting of the ISI and Military Intelligence (MI) officers and outlined a three-phase strategy on how to overwhelm Kashmir.34 While the Afghan war was still apace, the ISI and Pakistan arrived at a fateful conclusion: that it could do to India what it had done to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.35 As an organized rebellion erupted late in 1989 in Kashmir, the ISI was quick to back it. Inspired by the success against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, Pakistani intelligence officers announced to then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1989 that they were prepared to use the same methods of covert

Introduction

7

jihad to drive India out of Kashmir. The ISI organized training camps for Kashmiri guerrillas in Afghanistan’s Paktia province, where the Arab volunteers had earlier organized their own camps.36 In 1990, with peaceful demonstrators being gunned down by Indian forces in the streets, Jamaat-e-Islami activists in Kashmir were rapidly becoming disillusioned with the traditional non-violent stance of the movement. Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, the Aurangabad born Islamist ideologue, had established Jamaat-e-Islami on 26 August 1941 with Pathankot as its headquarter. After partition, escorted by the British army Maududi migrated to Lahore to continue the work of JeI. What remained in India was known as Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Jamaat-e-Islami in Kashmir formed an armed wing, known as Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, which, with its pro-Islamabad stance and obvious links to Zia’s allies in Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan, was a natural focus for the ambitions of the ISI and the senior Pakistani military command. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who continued to be the favourite of the ISI, provided training facilities for the new group at his camps in Afghanistan. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, born in 1947 in the Kunduz province of Afghanistan, was a student at Kabul University in 1975, when the ISI started funding him to exert Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan. During the USSR–Afghan war of 1979–89, Hekmatyar worked closely with the ISI to defeat the USSR in Afghanistan. From then until the rise of the Taliban in 1994, he became the favourite of the ISI in Afghanistan. One particularly large camp, known as the Markaz Faiz Mohammed Shaheed, was set up with ISI trainers and administrators on the road between Zhawar Khili and Khost in late 1991. Other militants were trained in camps set up around Muzzafarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Trainers were borrowed from Hekmatyar and the syllabus was based on that taught by the ISI to the Afghan Mujahideen.37 Since 1993, the LeT joined the struggle in Kashmir and for the next 10 years, Pakistan-based militants wreaked havoc in J&K. Though casualties among their security personnel and civilians were high, the Indians showed no sign of weakening. During the closing years of the 1990s, India improved its counter-insurgency efforts remarkably by greatly increasing the number of troops and paramilitaries in Kashmir and by augmenting the military aspects of the counter-insurgency with social and political reforms. India’s socio-economic developmental efforts in Kashmir paid off and local support for the militants decreased.38 The people of J&K were tired of the insurgency as terrorism kept almost all the bread-winners of

8

The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

the province indoors. Gul Ahmad, a tour operator from the beautiful hill resort of Gulmarg, 50 km away from Srinagar informs me that ‘young people in their 20s and 30s grayed their beard and hair not by normal aging, but by aging too fast just by sitting frustrated indoors’.39 People of the province were tired of the menace of the militants who visited their homes uninvited and demanded food, shelter, money and participants in their struggle.40 By the year 2003, plagued by failure, frustration and exhaustion, the Kashmir-based militants started losing morale. During this time the theatre of war shifted to Afghanistan and militants of all hues in Pakistan started taking active interest in al-Qaeda and the Taliban’s fight against the US and coalition forces.41 All these events had produced a change far greater than the scale of anybody’s imagination. The change occurred on three fronts: in Afghanistan, which now became the theatre of war between Islamic extremists and the US, in Pakistan, and in Kashmir, which no more remained a prime focus for the militants and hence became peaceful. In 2005, Indian security forces declared Kashmir safe from the menace of terrorism. The ISI was enraged with this change of circumstances, particularly in Kashmir. It wanted to revitalize the flagging guerrilla campaign against India. The agency devised a grand plan under the pet name of ‘Karachi Project’ to unsettle India.42 It is contended that the Mumbai attack was under the ‘Karachi Project’. The assault on Mumbai was not a mere attack on the financial capital of the country but part of a grand design, an alternative offensive strategy of the Pakistani military to unsettle India and a way to alleviate the dissatisfaction of the extremist elements of the LeT while maintaining the ISI’s US-ally image. India became the consequential victim of Pakistan’s age-old hostility and new regional security dynamics of South Asia. The Mumbai attacks were no ordinary terrorist hits, which makes their critical assessment and examination more significant. Fragile Frontiers is a threadbare analysis of the plethora of questions surrounding the attacks. Why were the attacks, almost on the scale of waging a war, planned by the LeT, which was until then involved in low-scale terror acts against India? What were the circumstances which forced the Pakistani conspirators to send storm troopers to a foreign country, despite the lurking danger of international condemnation and embargo? How could India have left its sea border exposed to a handful of terrorists to hold an entire megacity to ransom? Were the attacks, in which the perpetrators came by sea, an accidental aberration on the part of the security forces or was it the opening of a new and fragile frontier by Pakistan to wage a proxy war against India?

Introduction

9

Why did the attackers take the sea route? Why was mainland India targeted by hardened foreign militants, who were until then targeting Kashmir and supporting homegrown militants to disturb the peace in Indian cities? How much truth is attached to India’s allegation that the Mumbai attack was an ISI act supported by the Pakistan army? Was, as the special public prosecutor insisted, the attack meant to gain an upper hand to settle the Kashmir dispute? Media reports are full of wild speculations. Some reports say that the attack was intended to shift the theatre of war from the western border to the eastern border of Pakistan and to deflect inwards attacks in Pakistan and retrieve Pakistan from the morass of militancy. What is the truth? A civilian government was in place in Pakistan when the attacks took place.43 How did the incumbent government conduct itself during and after the Mumbai crisis? There were a series of bombings and blasts in almost all the major cities of India before the Mumbai attacks. Were those attacks a prelude to the grand Mumbai attacks? Why was India clueless about the perpetrators of those blasts that occurred before the Mumbai attacks? What is the next plan of the ISILeT combine? The book is all about the fragility of India’s frontiers in its recent historical past; an inquiry into the grand design behind the 26/11 attacks; a narration of its execution; an assessment of India’s response mechanism; and a projection on future terrorism in India. The attack on Mumbai was neither crude nor a dry terrorist act. It was not detached from India’s past with Pakistan either.44 A slight detour into the history of India’s troubled relations and wars with Pakistan would give the reader the background knowledge about how India conducted itself, and how the frontiers of India remained fragile, which ultimately led to the Mumbai attacks. Until 1999, when the Kargil War took place, India had already fought three full-scale wars with Pakistan. India’s supremacy and victory ensued in all the three wars but, for surprising reasons, the country had developed the habit of losing a portion of its landmass to a defeated Pakistan, after all of its victories, except after the 1971 war. The trend prompted Pakistani dictator General Ayub Khan to declare that ‘as a general rule Hindu morale would not stand more than a couple of blows delivered at the right time and place’.45 The strange outcome of all these wars convinced the Pakistani leaders, especially the unaccountable military officers, about the stealth of their national boundary. Encouraged by the outcome of the first two wars, Pakistani military had developed a nebulous doctrine that India could neither initiate a war nor dare to seize land from Pakistan, although publicly they claimed the exact

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The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

opposite that ‘India would dismember Pakistan if allowed a chance’.46 This doctrine was a product and part of Pakistan’s historical experiences, as the country had managed to stretch its national frontier inside India’s territory twice, each time after testing defeat and surrender. The 1948 Indo-Pak war provided the Indian army the first ever opportunity to stand together and win a war solely for India after centuries of foreign rule.47 India won the war but lost a great portion of territory to Pakistan, which was later known as ‘Azad Kashmir’ (13,297 sq. km) and ‘Northern Areas’ (72,496 sq. km). In 1965, Pakistan made another bid to wrest Indian territory but faced a crushing defeat. India won the war but lost 350 square miles of landmass to Pakistan.48 The trend of acquisition of India in bits and parts was reversed in the 1971 war when Pakistan plunged into a full-scale war and lost half of its landmass not to India, but to a new country, Bangladesh, carved out of Pakistan.49 Even after losing half of their country, privately, the mullahs and military leaders of Pakistan were happy with the fact that ‘not a single inch of their country’ had gone to the kafirs (infidels).50 After the creation of Bangladesh, the mullah and military combine invoked and codified an ‘Indian bogey’ in each stone of Pakistan and in the mind of common Pakistanis. Systematically, Pakistan indoctrinated all sections of the society about ‘how India is actually a bogey’ for Pakistan. To indoctrinate how India is an evil for Pakistan, three fronts were identified, which included (a) the syllabus of educational institutions, including medical colleges; (b) military training curricula; and (c) the course structure of madrassas. Later, communication and mass media became another vehicle of the said indoctrination process. Political leaders, military generals and religious zealots started thinking, planning and waging war against India one after another, by deceiving their home audience with the stage-managed scare that Hindu India was always preying to dismember and dissolve Islamic Pakistan if they did not take pro-active and strong action.51 The Muslim League led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah in pre-independent India had demanded and obtained a separate nation, Pakistan, for the Muslims. Cyril Radcliffe had drawn a demarcation line between the newly created Pakistan and the ancient civilizational land India. While coming to terms with the modern nation states and their pros and cons, India agreed to the demarcation line erected jointly by the British, Indian and Pakistani leaders. Pakistan not only refused to reconcile but staked claim on parts of newly independent India.52 This claim of Pakistan gradually took on an obsessive shape, a phenomenon later famous as the ‘India obsession’ or more precisely the ‘Kashmir

Introduction

11

obsession’. Pakistan has a historical fixation on the issue of ownership of Kashmir. Irrespective of the will and wish of Kashmiris, the Pakistani establishment has displayed consistent inflexibility and rigidity about Kashmir since Independence.53 A recent survey indicated that 44 per cent of people in PoK favoured independence, compared to 43 per cent in the Indian side of Kashmir. In the Kashmir valley — the mainly Muslim area at the centre of the insurgency — support for independence is between 74 per cent and 95 per cent. But in the predominantly Hindu Jammu division, support for independence is under 1 per cent.54 Nowhere did the Kashmiris demonstrate their willingness to align with Pakistan. There is no existing or lapsed legal claim, no historical treaty or verbal agreement either of the Kashmiri people with Pakistan, remote or recent, to sanctify Pakistan’s guardianship on Kashmir. Pakistan’s claim is faith-based and India’s refusal for a one-sided plebiscite has not only annoyed Pakistan but also become one of the root causes of the rift. Just as kings and emperors of yore used to possess kingdoms far away from their territories, Pakistan wanted to reign in the heart of India in Hyderabad and Junagadh, apart from the full possession of the fringe province Kashmir. The claim on these three Indian provinces, out of which two are in the middle of the country surrounded by Indian territories, stemmed from the fact that, at the time of partition, Pakistan already possessed a territory in the name of East Pakistan 1,000 km away from its capital, Karachi. During partition, Pakistani leaders had wrongly assumed that if they could rule over a province as far away as that, they could do the same in the case of Hyderabad and Junagadh. However, Hyderabad and Junagadh never merged with Pakistan, Kashmir joined India and after a few years, East Pakistan disengaged from Islamabad.55 Pakistan was unhappy and infuriated, not because it could not get Kashmir, but because India had acquired the state. The loss of East Pakistan further aggravated the situation and strengthened the resolve of the mullah–military–militant combine to unleash an uninterrupted strike against India, the same way the sword of Islam had been used to make forays into an affluent India during the medieval era.56 Since Independence, claiming Kashmir from India became one of the vital state policies of Pakistan. The missionary zeal of committed generals kept the army and ISI headquarters busy in making frequent efforts to wrest Kashmir from Hindu control.57 Pakistani leaders, military as well as civilian, have always believed that the Kashmiri population is sympathetic to the army’s effort to liberate the province from

12

The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

Indian control and that the people of Kashmir are eager to join Pakistan. An illusory social doctrine to this effect was developed by the military which tried to convince Pakistanis that their co-religionists, who are in a majority in Kashmir, are under brutal Indian suppression and impatient to join Pakistan, where they can breathe free air. Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah thought the same in 1947; so did Gen. Pervez Musharraf 52 years later in 1999. Immediately after Independence, when a few Muslim farmers in Poonch, Kashmir, refused to pay tax to their Hindu landlords and fled to Pakistan, Jinnah and his military officers thought that the situation was favourable to assimilate the province into Pakistan. Contrary to Jinnah’s belief, however, the people of Kashmir refused to support Pakistan.58 In 1965, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the young foreign minister under Pakistani dictator Gen. Ayub Khan, convinced his boss that the Kashmiri people were dissatisfied with India and they were ready to join the Pakistan army to liberate the province. Bhutto cited the arrest of Sher-e-Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah after his return from Mecca in 1965 in New Delhi by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s administration, as one of the reasons for Kashmiri discontent.59 He further said that he had secret information from the ISI that the Kashmiri population was waiting for an opportune moment to revolt against India. With the onset of the monsoon in 1965, Gen. Ayub Khan ordered an attack on Kashmir. Instead of informing listeners about the frontier attack, Radio Pakistan announced that a popular uprising had broken out in the valley. Bhutto and Khan’s assessment again proved wrong. The Kashmiris did not support Pakistan’s aggression; rather, the local population was mostly apathetic to the intruders and some of them were even handed over to the police. Not long after the 1965 frontier conflict, in 1971, war ensued for the third time. However, this time the circumstances were different. The war was mainly concentrated in East Pakistan when Pakistan dictator Gen. Yahya Khan decided to snatch Kashmir by attacking the province. India responded by opening new fronts in Punjab and the Indian army reached close to a defenceless Lahore. Bhutto had told Gen. Yahya Khan that this would never happen. Pakistan was defeated by India, which resulted in the surrender of the Pakistani army and the signing of the Shimla agreement.60 The Shimla agreement restricted Pakistan from using force against India to alter frontiers. The ISI and army planners devised a novel strategy to overcome this restriction, whereby the spirit of the

Introduction

13

agreement would not be violated but Pakistan could still wage a war with India to alter the border.61 Pakistan started supporting militancy in Kashmir and other parts of India to wage a proxy war from 1989 onwards. The intention was to collaborate with the insurgents and then attack Kashmir to amalgamate the state with Pakistan. In 1990, the ISI was triumphal after its victory in Afghanistan,62 which encouraged the organization to orchestrate a similar operation in Kashmir to wrest the province from India. The Pakistani army was confident of replicating their guerrilla war and victory of Afghanistan in Kashmir. For the next 10 years, Pakistani generals were waiting for a flare-up in Kashmir. Not only could Pakistan not find an appropriate situation but even the international circumstances were not favourable for the nation. The international political climate and the US policy, especially American President Bill Clinton’s threat to declare Pakistan a terrorist state in 1993,63 compelled Pakistani generals to shelve their ‘snatch Kashmir’ plan in the early 1990s. But they never dropped their agenda and after a few years, in 1999, the army headquarters in Rawalpindi resumed its operations. No matter what the local population thought or how they had acted in the past, the Pakistani military’s ‘wrest’ Kashmir plan remained. The hustle-bustle of the 1990s had been further complicated by the nuclear tests conducted in India, followed by those in Pakistan in 1998. When the dust of the nuclear tests settled, the US persuaded India and Pakistan to restart their stalled dialogue in 1999. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee travelled in a bus from Amritsar to Lahore to inform his host, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, that India was ready to maintain peace in the region. While the two prime ministers were exchanging pleasantries and showing commitment for a durable peace, the Pakistani army was busy smuggling militants into India and digging bunkers. The plan to attack Kashmir was at its final stage. The Pakistan army refused to learn lessons from the past and history repeated itself in 1999 in Kargil. The ISI invested a lot of money with the hope that the Kashmiri youth would join the Pakistani army. However, they never participated in the ISI-sponsored ‘dollar induced jihad’.64 The ISI left no stone unturned to incite insurgency and the impact of their efforts (which were a comprehensive failure) was not exposed before the Kargil war. So ISI officers on the ground forged reports and informed their superiors at Rawalpindi that the insurgency against India in Kashmir during 1999 was palpable, real and tempting. The

14

The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

Pakistani army only considered the international ramifications, not domestic opinion. During this time, there was relative peace and stability in Pakistan. This gave elbow room to the Pakistani army for a fresh raid against India to obtain Kashmir. The aim was to make a quick inroad into the state, blocking the Srinagar–Leh highway, the main supply artery of the Indian army for Siachen and Laddakh, before a ceasefire was declared and get an unwitting sanction from the United Nations (UN) for the advanced position made by the Pakistani army. In 1994, as director general of military operations, Gen. Pervez Musharraf presented a Kargil operation plan to then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, which she refused outright.65 In October 1998, Gen. Musharraf was elevated to the top post in the army, and immediately started his ambitious plan to ‘wrest Kashmir’, ‘with or without the support of the civilian leadership’. In this operation, he was supported by his crony generals, who also happened to be veterans of the Afghan war. The Indian army also learnt from its past mistakes and used air power to send back or kill the intruders. Not a single inch of Kashmir was lost this time. A failed Pakistan army sought revenge on India. Before the end of 1999, the ISI supported a highly organized hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane, whose passengers and crew the Indian government rescued in exchange for the release of three dreaded Pakistani militants, who were spending their jail terms in Jammu and New Delhi. On 11 September 2001, the danger of terrorism finally reached the US with a bang and the world’s only superpower could not miss the point that the peril of terrorism, which India and other countries had been facing for decades, was real. The US was furious, wounded and nearly defeated by a few terrorists. Immediately it was established that the attacks had been guided from the trenches of Afghanistan.66 On 11 September, when the terrorists attacked the US, ISI chief Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed was in Washington DC on an official visit. On 12 September, at 10 a.m. he met the US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage at the State Department, where Armitage allegedly offered Mahmood the choice to ‘help the US and breathe in the 21st century along with the international community or be prepared to live in the Stone Age’.67 Gen. Musharraf confirmed this threat in his autobiography. On the same day, at 1.30 p.m., US Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to President Musharraf on a

Introduction

15

secured phone and candidly informed the President that ‘the American people would not understand if Pakistan did not cooperate in this fight with the US’.68 A couple of years before the attacks on the US, on 13 October 1999, Gen. Pervez Musharraf deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup and heralded military rule for the fourth time. Immediately he became the Chief Executive of the country and from 20 June 2001, he formally declared himself as the President of Pakistan. Previously, American President George Bush had already declared in an address to the nation that ‘either you are with us or with the terrorists’.69 After these three coordinated threats from the US, the landscape of terrorism in South Asia was about to witness a sea change. Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism against India and its involvement with proxy terrorism to unsettle New Delhi was about to face new and serious challenges.70 The 11 Corps Commanders of the Pakistan army, along with the ISI chief and Military Intelligence (MI) chief, determined the fate of the country. After the 11 September attacks they had to decide whether Pakistan should support the US or not. On 14 September 2001, nine Corps Commanders, the ISI chief and the MI chief met President Musharraf in a nuclear bunker at Chaklala airbase near Islamabad to avoid any US surveillance.71 Chaklala cantonment is an old British garrison from the days of the British Raj when officers used to escape the heat of Delhi for the cooler hills on the approaches to Afghanistan. Presently, Chaklala is the well-tended home of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services.72 In this meeting, President Musharraf tried to convince his generals that the decision to cooperate with the US was necessary to safeguard Pakistan’s nuclear assets and its Kashmir policy. However, Corps Commanders and the ISI chief refused to agree with the president, even though the ISI head had agreed to support the US in Washington two days before. However, Gen. Musharraf had no option but to support the US. Apparently, the post-11 September turnaround was forced on the military regime, and the decision was not the result of a considerate policy review.73 During the 1980s, Pakistan had developed a nebulous Afghan policy, where its military strategists argued that Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan would give the country ‘strategic depth’ against its primary enemy, India.74 Pakistan’s elongated geography, the lack of space, depth and a hinterland denied its armed forces the ability to fight a prolonged war with India. Pakistan’s geographical thinness

16

The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

helps her in having shorter interior lines, a plus for quick mobilization. However, it also makes her vulnerable to a sweeping offensive with thrusts directed at strategic locations. Pakistan’s military operations (mil-ops) strategy against a potential Indian offensive, given a relatively weaker air force, more reliance on air defences and lesser logistics and reserve capabilities, entailed a combination of holding the Indian offensive in certain areas and striking in others. This meant identifying points of no penetration (Lahore and Sialkot, for instance), points where the Indian forces could be pulled in, areas where Pakistan would strike back and also, areas where, if need be, Pakistan could cross over.75 This is a very simplistic overview of a complex mil-ops strategy, which subsumes multiple operational plans. But the logic was to use interior lines that benefited the defender rather than taking the stress of exterior lines necessary for an offensive. Mirza Aslam Beg, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq’s high-profile army chief, was credited with the authorship of ‘strategic depth’ in the early 1980s. Theoretically speaking, it was a pro-active defensive strategy of security in the West to counterbalance the conventionally superior India by strengthening diplomatic and military relations with Afghanistan and the Arab world, to the extent that in the worst-case scenario of war with India,76 the Pakistan army’s high command could move westward and use Afghanistan as a strategic line against India. In the 1990s, in addition to the ‘strategic depth’, Pakistan wanted a friendly or client government in Afghanistan because Kashmiri militants could be trained, funded and armed against India from there.77 The ‘strategic depth’ policy was in tatters when the Corps Commanders met at the Chaklala airbase. The gross disagreements at the level of top commanders divided the rank and file of the Pakistan army, which is avowedly religious in faith.78 The military’s religious inclination started during the era of Zia-ul Haq, when the Quran and other religious material became compulsory reading in army training courses and ‘radical Islamist ideology began to permeate the military and the influence of the most extreme groups crept into the army’.79 Zia’s self-declared ‘Islamization’ policies created a ‘culture of jihad’ within Pakistan that continues until the present day.80 In the aftermath of 11 September, Pakistan was about to enter into an era of chaos where governing the country became untenable and its revival became difficult. During the Afghan war of the 1980s, Pakistan supplied lakhs of jihadis from the country’s madrassas and supported the Afghan

Introduction

17

mujahideen. The country also created, nurtured and trained generations of jihadis and militants to use in Afghanistan and Kashmir. All these Islamist militants were stunned with the about-turn of Pakistan.81 The US used Pakistani soil to defeat the Taliban and with Pakistani support decimated the Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, which left the entire spectrum of militants in Pakistan high and dry. This created a rift not only in the ISI and the army but also in the militant rank and file.82 General Musharraf and his colleagues in Pakistan failed to envision what would be in store. Pakistan’s policies at the western and eastern borders suffered like never before. As a result, the country was sandwiched in between the Islamic extremists and the international coalition led by the US. As time progressed, each of its policies started failing and Pakistan descended into chaos.83 As a final attempt, Pakistan orchestrated the Mumbai attacks to deflect attention from all that had been happening inside the country. Meanwhile, back in India, a couple of years before the 9/11 attacks, in March 1998, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government returned to power in New Delhi, ending the political instability prevailing in the country for two years. For the next six years, the BJP-led coalition ruled the country, which allowed armed forces and policy makers to take strong and durable measures against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Just before the 11 September attacks, in January 2001, India received Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres before the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in September 2003.84 The visits of the Israeli dignitaries were not unconnected with India’s fight against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. The comeback of the BJP in India dramatically changed India’s relations with Israel.85 As a result, India received Israeli-made surveillance devices ranging from unattended ground sensors and handheld thermal imagers (HHTI) to long-range reconnaissance and observation systems and battlefield surveillance radars.86 Taking advantage of the shift of terrorism from Kashmir to Afghanistan, India started fencing the 3,323 km (including the Line of Control [LoC] in J&K sector) of its land border with Pakistan. This border runs along the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir. With Israeli assistance, the Indian army deployed a ‘Surveillance Grid’ along its frontiers with Pakistan to keep a check on the infiltration of militants from PoK.87

18

The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

In late 2004, India’s army chief General N. C. Vij informed the world that the fencing of the border in Kashmir had been completed in the summer of that year.88 Senior police officials in Srinagar informed me about the ending of terrorism in Kashmir in or around 2004–05. Amazed by the impact of fencing, Professor Stephen Cohen, Pakistan expert at Washington’s Brooking Institution, said, ‘Frankly, I’m surprised the Indians didn’t build it earlier’.89 Bruised and scarred by the 11 September attacks, the US administration started exerting enormous pressure on the Musharraf government in late 2003 to shut down the ISI’s ‘Forward Section 23’ in PoK, notorious for its involvement with terrorist groups.90 In March 2003, India’s Defence Intelligence Agency provided the US with ‘solid documentary proof’ that 70 Islamic militant camps were operating in PoK. In May 2003, the Indian defence minister claimed that about 3,000 terrorists were being trained in camps on the Pakistani side of the LoC.91 The US Deputy Secretary of State reportedly received a June 2002 pledge from Pakistani President Gen. Musharraf that all ‘cross-border terrorism’ would cease, followed by a May 2003 pledge that any terrorist training camps in Pakistan-controlled areas would be closed.92 This resulted in the closure of all terrorist training camps and ISI operations offices in PoK. Under the changed circumstances, all the ISI officials and militant leaders left PoK for Karachi and turned the megacity into the new hub for anti-India activities. The ISI started using its Karachi front office to manage terrorist organizations and it was during this time, during the end of 2003, that the agency started a plan under the pet name of ‘Karachi Project’ to unsettle India.93 The post-11 September era was particularly suitable for India’s efforts against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. US bombing in Afghanistan had destroyed the Taliban and al-Qaeda’s abode, along with the training camps of Kashmir-centric militant organizations Harkat-ul Mujahideen (HuM), the LeT and JeM.94 Under US pressure, President Musharraf arrested thousands of militants in 2002–03.95 All this led to a rise in militant activities in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) against Pakistan. The militants even attempted to assassinate Gen. Musharraf twice within a period of 20 days in 2003 and 2004.96 With each step of Pakistan having gone awry, India successfully strengthened her internal and external security, in a gradual manner. Pakistani planners were surprised that not only did India manage to

Introduction

19

establish peace in Kashmir and nullify Pakistan’s claim of ownership in the region but it also restarted diplomatic relations with Kabul. Apart from its embassy in Kabul, India managed to open four more consulates in Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Kandahar and promote investment in the country. Pakistan was furious with the new development and started targeting Indian interests in Afghanistan.97 The Americans achieved a quick victory over the Taliban and al-Qaeda but it was very difficult for the US-led coalition to subdue the intransigent warlords and militants of inhospitable Afghanistan. The militants lost to the Americans in battle but they did not surrender and started guerrilla warfare instead. Pakistan’s support to the US and its policy reversal brought the state into conflict with the jihadi organizations. This conflict was to grow and devastate Pakistan in the coming days.98 ISI planners and military strategists were caught unawares by the impending explosive situation in Pakistan. Wounded and injured, militants of all hues from Afghanistan gathered in Pakistan and joined hands with their local counterparts. The ISI also sheltered senior Taliban leaders in FATA and Quetta.99 They were all annoyed by Pakistan’s U-turn. After the congregation of various militant groups in Pakistan, the powder was in the barrel and only a spark was required. That was provided by a 70-year-old al-Qaeda commander, Abu Amr Abd al-Hakim Hassan, popularly known as Sheikh Essa. Sheikh Essa reached Pakistan in 2003 to incite Pakistani militants against the Pakistani army’s decision to join the US war on terrorism. He appealed to the militant leaders of Pakistan, mullahs and heads of madrassas to call the Pakistani army heretics as they were fighting against fellow Muslims at the behest of the US. His task primarily was to orchestrate a clash between the secular forces and the Islamists of Pakistan, to arrive at a point where the Pakistani state apparatus would either remain completely neutral in the US war in Afghanistan or be forced to support the Taliban–al-Qaeda resistance.100 A cloud was gathering over the Pakistani sky when Maulana Abdul Aziz of the most powerful Lal Masjid of Islamabad responded to Sheikh Essa and, in 2004, issued a fatwa (religious decree). Maulana Aziz’s fatwa read, ‘Pakistani soldiers killed while fighting against the mujahideen in South Waziristan does not merit a Muslim funeral or a burial in Muslim cemeteries [sic]’.101 This fatwa had a huge impact, as parents refused to receive the dead bodies of their soldier sons and

20

The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

the martyrs of Pakistan were denied an honourable burial. Before the army could control the situation, dozens of soldiers defied the orders of their seniors to fight and hundreds of officers and soldiers applied for retirement from service. More than 1,700 soldiers and officers deserted the army either to join the Taliban–al-Qaeda-led fight against the US or to join Pakistani militant organizations.102 Set in the leafy suburbs of Islamabad close to the diplomatic enclave housing foreign embassies, Lal Masjid was built in 1965 by the government of Gen. Ayub Khan. The mosque was named for its red walls and interiors. Throughout its existence, it used to enjoy official patronage from influential members of successive governments, army chiefs, prime ministers and presidents. It had earned a reputation of radicalism, attracting Islamic hard-line students from NWFP and FATA, where support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda is quite strong.103 Located near the headquarters of the ISI, the mosque was instrumental in sending militants to Kashmir too. Every year, the HuM commander Fazlur Rehman Khalil came to the door of Maulana Abdul Aziz and within a few days of a call by Aziz, hundreds of youths from the madrassas were readied to join the Kashmir struggle.104 The ISI did not miss the significance of Lal Masjid in the country. A call from the Lal Masjid also incited the 1.8 million regular students of the 18,000 madrassas in the country against Pakistan.105 Determined to impose Sharia law in the country, the students of Lal Masjid had forcibly captured a children’s library, closed brothels and burned CD shops in the bazaars of Islamabad. The matter flared up when Lal Masjid students kidnapped some Chinese women on charges of prostitution.106 Fearing the consequences and understanding the trap of al-Qaeda, Gen. Musharraf started pacifying Maulana Abdul Aziz. Musharraf sent Ejaz-ul-Haq, the minister of religious affairs, who was also the son of Gen. Zia-ul Haq, to negotiate with Maulana Abdul Aziz. Aziz’s father, Maulana Abdullah, and Gen. Zia had been very close friends, and this relationship had continued with their sons. Aziz made it clear to Ejaz-ul Haq that he was not going to refrain from his mission to implement Sharia in Pakistan. Musharraf persuaded Maulana Mufti Taqi Usmani, a renowned Islamic scholar and the influential spiritual guide of Maulana Aziz, to talk to Aziz. Maulana Usmani also tasted failure. As a last attempt, Musharraf invited Sheikh Abdur Rehman al-Sudais, the prayer leader of the Mecca Masjid,

Introduction

21

Saudi Arabia, in the hope that the Lal Masjid prayer leader would respect his argument.107 But al-Sudais’s attempt did not work either. The Lal Masjid stand-off eventually came to a bloody denouement on 11 July 2007 when the Musharraf regime decided to launch ‘Operation Silence’.108 During the operation, the military sent the chief of the banned HuM, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, to Lal Masjid as a final attempt to win over the clerics. The significance and possible repercussions of Lal Masjid could be understood from the fact that a desperate Musharraf tried every possible avenue to dissuade the incumbents of the masjid from a confrontation with the military. Maulana Aziz and his brother Abdul Rasheed Ghazi refused and delivered fiery speeches in retaliation. The military started its operation and captured Maulana Aziz when he tried to flee the masjid in a burkha (a head-to-toe, single piece female garb). Ghazi, his mother and Maulana Aziz’s son were killed in the operation, which ended with the deaths of hundreds of people, including commandos, terrorists, students, and civilians. After the Lal Masjid operation, Pakistan was never the same. On 11 July 2007, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second in command of al-Qaeda, issued a videotape calling for Pakistanis to join a jihad in revenge for the attack by Pakistan’s army on Lal Masjid. The operation caused a serious blow to the decades-long mullah–military–militant nexus. Almost all militant groups, barring the LeT, turned their guns against Pakistan. A stunned ISI was clueless about what to do as the furore over the event refused to die down.109 The impact of the Lal Masjid operation in the psyche of Pakistanis could be judged from the fact that even three years after the operation, a naturalized American of Pakistani origin, Faisal Shahzad, tried to bomb New York’s Times Square to avenge this operation. In the aftermath of the Lal Masjid killings, Pakistan continued to be in the grip of escalating violence. The storming of a holy place of worship eventually snowballed into a crisis, which saw even senior army and ISI generals turn against Musharraf. The incident certainly heralded a new era in Pakistan. A conflict between moderate and fundamentalist forces gained momentum. The bloody operations also had a most dreaded fall-out — an unprecedented increase in suicide attacks all over Pakistan, especially targeting the security forces. Gen. Musharraf understood his folly and tried to undo the damage.

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The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

In a carefully crafted plan, Musharraf engaged the Supreme Court of Pakistan to fix a deal with the Lal Masjid militants. The Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the incident and ordered that the government-owned children’s library be returned to Maulana Aziz and Ghazi’s families, the complex be rebuilt, and compensation be paid to those affected. Two of the judges who provided relief to the Lal Masjid madrassa militants were retained by Musharraf’s regime when he reshuffled the Supreme Court later in 2007.110 But all these corrective measures could not prevent Gen. Musharraf’s departure. Figures compiled by the ministry of interior show that Pakistan witnessed an 18-fold increase in the incidents of suicide bombings in 2007, as compared to 2005.111 The ploy of targeting jam-packed mosques during prayers has been increasingly used by the Tehrike-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as a lethal way to create horror. Over 50 mosques have been targeted since 9/11, either by the TTP or by jihadi groups like the JeM, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Harkat-ul Jihad-ul Islami (HuJI) and Jamaat-ul Furqaan. Pakistan needed strong measures to halt this bloodbath, which were tarnishing the image of the army each passing day. As part of this effort, the ISI planners started the grand plan ‘Karachi Project’,112 to shift the theatre of violence from Pakistan to mainland India, if not Kashmir. Musharraf appointed Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani as the director general of the ISI in 2004 and many ISI officers were engaged to create a reign of terror in India to deflect the attention of Pakistani people.113 Pakistan has been carrying the dubious distinction of a country which plays double games and implements contradictory policies with magical dexterity. In 1999, when Indian Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were shaking hands in Lahore, the Pakistan army was digging bunkers in and around Kargil inside Indian territory.114 As explained earlier, the Musharraf government had been playing both sides of the US war on terror since 11 September. The country had joined the US fight against terror but at the same time provided a safe house to bin Laden and sanctuaries to Afghan Taliban leaders, hobnobbing with the Haqqani network and coordinating the activities of Pakistani militants.115 During the year 2004–05, Pakistan renewed its pledge to the terrorists116 and simultaneously engaged India on a range of peace-related issues. On 16 February 2005, Indian External Affairs Minister, Natwar

Introduction

23

Singh, met his Pakistani counterpart, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, and sealed six agreements. But disagreement prevailed even during the signing ceremony and the Pakistani foreign minister refused to take questions at a joint press appearance in New Delhi.117 Track II diplomacy also flourished during this time. Track II diplomacy is the unofficial interaction between conflicting parties where an official interface became difficult. It is a mechanism where academics, former civil and military officials and popular figures from conflicting countries meet to find common ground that official negotiators can not. Two Indian members of the Track II diplomacy informed me that their visits to Pakistan were more of a routine bureaucratic affair and unconnected with the core policy of India or Pakistan.118 It was noticed during this time that there was a reduction of infiltration in J&K. However, this was not because of Pakistan’s effort but because of the fencing of the frontier in J&K, social building in Kashmir and active vigilance of the Indian army. Kashmir was considered as conflict ridden so earlier only force was applied to pacify the unrest. But later on the army adopted many programmes to win the hearts and minds of the people and addressed social problems of the region. That was called social building. When Mumbai was attacked, an Indian delegation from the home ministry was discussing terror issues with their Pakistani counterparts in Islamabad and Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was advocating friendship in Chandigarh.119 The plan of the ISI to create a reign of terror in India was partially successful as its operatives and clients managed to bomb at least a dozen Indian cities, with the serial blasts in Mumbai in 2006 topping the chart. In 2004, the centrist Congress-led coalition government replaced the right-wing BJP government. An economist, Dr. Manmohan Singh, headed the new government. His appointment, it was rumoured, was not because of his capacity to lead the Congress party but because of his acceptance of a subordinate position to the powerful Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.120 Characteristically, the bureaucrat prime minister became busy with India’s economic progress and in signing a civil nuclear deal with the US government. His home minister, who was defeated in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, like the prime minister, managed to obtain his high-profile position owing to his loyalty to his party president.121 India witnessed 64 terror attacks in 2008 alone and a total of 6,000 terror hits during his tenure.122

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The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

On the one hand the ISI was successful in bombing a few Indian cities; on the other they were unable to prevent the increasing attacks in their host country.123 It was during this time that the ISI planners realized the need to make a grand statement against India, which would alter the existing regional dynamics and possibly end the internal chaos in Pakistan.124 Another Kargil was unthinkable, as Gen. Musharraf was losing ground in Pakistan and his past record as a ‘thoughtless invader’ was already acting against him.125 A spectacular strike against India was planned with the explicit intention of inciting a frenzied reaction from India. That would serve two purposes: (a) in case India decided to respond militarily as during the Kargil war, Pakistan would have shifted its troops and action from the Af-Pak border to the Indo-Pak border, and (b) the attack against India through a militant organization would send a signal to the jihadis that the ISI had not abandoned them.126 For this purpose, the most dreaded, disciplined, motivated and loyal terrorist organization, the LeT, was the obvious choice of the ISI.127 The stage was set for an attack against India. Inside the brick walls of the ISI headquarters in Rawalpindi, a specialized cell was devoted to the Mumbai operation. The ISI solicited the service of international players like Pakistani American Syed Dawood Gilani alias David Coleman Headley, Pakistani Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana and many unnamed people from Italy and the Gulf countries.128 The spy agency acted as the central processing unit to organize the grand attack. The claim that the Mumbai attack was an al-Qaeda plot does not stand up in the face of academic scrutiny.129 Many factors contribute to this academic refusal. For example, David Headley’s meeting with al-Qaeda Commander Ilyas Kashmiri was a post-dated affair so far as the Mumbai attacks were concerned. Headley met Kashmiri in or around 25 January 2009 in FATA.130 Major Abdur Rehman Hashim had introduced Headley to Kashmiri at the latter’s residence. This meeting was only meant for exchanging pleasantries where Kashmiri congratulated Headley on his role in the Mumbai attacks. During this meeting, there was no mention of the fact that the Mumbai plan was an al-Qaeda plot.131 In May 2009, Headley met Kashmiri for the second time and on this occasion the plan to attack Jyllands-Posten in Denmark was discussed.132 As an al-Qaeda commander, Kashmiri was happy with the success of Mumbai attacks, but there was no material evidence to support the claim that he masterminded them.

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25

Unlike Mumbai, his involvement in the proposed Denmark attack was confirmed.133 The rumour that Major Hashim was an al-Qaeda operative, who guided Headley for the Mumbai attack, is not convincing either. Headley was introduced to Major Hashim in and around the early summer of 2002. During this time, Major Hashim was a trainer in the LeT along with Major Haroon and Captain Khurram. Headley’s contact with Major Hashim or Major Haroon during the years 2002 to 2005 had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. It was around 2005 that the trio, Major Hashim, Major Haroon and Captain Khurram, left the LeT to join the Afghan Taliban to fight against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces.134 Readers will get to know each of these actors elaborately in the proceeding chapters. Nevertheless, their connection with al-Qaeda is shrouded in mystery. However, since they shared space with al-Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri, it is certain that they had some connection with al-Qaeda over the years. Headley’s next meeting with Major Hashim was in January 2006, when the former took the latter to the Khyber Agency to introduce him to some of his old contacts from his drug-dealing days. During this trip, Headley guided Major Hashim to a dealer named Niyamat Shah to generate money for jihad.135 While travelling from Peshawar to Khyber Agency, Headley and Major Hashim were caught by the tribal guards at a post called Bagh-e-Khyber and then handed over to the local police. The police sent them to Landikotal prison, where an ISI officer, Major Ali, interrogated them separately. The next day Niyamat Shah, who knew Major Ali, went to the police station and got the two released. However, during the interrogation, Major Ali came to know that Headley was connected with the LeT and he had a plan against India. So the ISI officer sent him to Lahore where he was contacted by other ISI officers to participate in the Mumbai attacks.136 The chronology of events proves that from the beginning there was no footprint of al-Qaeda or any agency other than the ISI and the LeT in the Mumbai conspiracy. The argument that al-Qaeda had hijacked the Mumbai plan midway and converted it into a huge commando-style attack also does not hold water. At no stage were the al-Qaeda planners engaged with the execution of the Mumbai attacks.137 Rather, the LeT leaders, including Sajid Majid and Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, had been unhappy because of Headley’s hobnobbing with Major Hashim. Headley, from

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The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

the very beginning, had had two employers to report to — the first one was the ISI and the second, the LeT. While the ISI’s assignment was on a greater scale than that of the LeT, the latter was mainly concentrating on the Mumbai attacks.138 The ISI’s assignment was to deal with affairs related to all over India and create unrest in as many places as possible. In other words, the ISI had to manage the entire Karachi Project. Linking the Mumbai attacks with al-Qaeda is only a figment of the imagination as the three estranged LeT leaders Major Hashim, Major Haroon and Captain Khurram, who possibly joined al-Qaeda later, could hardly have the clout to convince al-Qaeda to implement an attack plan.139 Although the notion that the Taliban and the al-Qaeda militants wanted to deflect Pakistan’s attention from the Western theatre of war is valid, it would be an error of analysis to link the Mumbai attacks with these two organizations. It was the Pakistan army, which was more desperate than others to shift the focus of terrorism from the Western border (Pakistan–Afghanistan) to the Eastern border (India– Pakistan) because of the collateral damage it has been suffering since 11 September. The prime motto of the army was to avoid an internecine war on the western front.140 Fragile Frontiers endeavours to join the scattered dots of the Mumbai attacks and form an unbroken chain of events. Efforts have been made to provide a graphic presentation of the event — how it unfolded at each of the places, how the law-enforcing agencies and security forces responded to the crisis, how the people of Mumbai suffered and how the nation responded to the crisis. The role of the international community cannot be ignored. The Wikileaks’ revelations brought us closer to the strategy and understanding of major foreign governments regarding the Mumbai attacks. The interpersonal and intra-personal dealings of major foreign governments on this issue proved to be a highly interesting tale. After the attacks, the matter was sent through an unending spiral of judicial interrogation and interpretation, which allowed the stakeholders of the attacks to develop cold feet. A detailed examination of the finer points shows that the judicial process was a disappointment.141 The court faltered in the face of the real challenge posed by the Mumbai attacks, which need introspection and deliberation. The attacks generated hitherto unknown public protests in India. The reaction was an outburst of the age-old Indian frustration with the

Introduction

27

inefficiency of the political class, which aided the Mumbai assault.142 Vital questions on Mumbai attacks were either never taken or never answered by the authorities. The Indian public was denied an official deliberation on such a huge incident in the form of a White Paper or a Blue Ribbon Commission. Whatever came out was in the form of leakages of government documents or media reports and nothing else. An effort has been made through this book to dissect the role of shadowy terror groups and spy agencies of Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks and the action taken by the Government of India.

28

x

Amita Shah and Jharna Pathak

1 India’s Fragile Frontiers through the Prism of History Œ

India has a rich past, a flourishing civilization and thousands of years of growth behind its present sophistication. Travellers and raconteurs never tired of narrating India’s fables. However, even today, the country is as fragile as it was ages ago in one aspect — demarcation and stabilization of its national frontier. Through its journey up to the 21st century, the frontiers of India have stretched and shrunk on innumerable occasions. The earliest evidence of a boundary for the nation is found in the Vedic texts.1 As per the ancient text Shalivahana, the grandson of King Vikramaditya, after having defeated foreigners trying to invade the country for the second time and expelling them beyond the Indus, issued a royal decree to the effect that henceforth the Indus should constitute the line of demarcation between India and other nations. The decree read: [h]aving conquered the irresistible Shakas, the Chinese, the Tartars, the Balhikas, Kamrupas, Romans, Khorajas and Stathas and having seized their treasures and punishing the offenders he demarcated the boundaries of the Aryans and the Mlecchas. The best country of the Aryans is known as Sindhustan whereas the Mleccha country lies beyond the Indus.2

The boundary later stretched up to the Hindu Kush mountains and the Khyber and Bolan passes became the tunnel towards the Western world.3 Since time immemorial, demarcation of the north-western boundary for India has been essential and significant. The northern and north-eastern part, endowed with the geographical gift of the Himalayas, acts as a frontier line for the country. The eastern, southwestern and southern boundaries have always been the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean respectively.4

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29

The Himalayan range, with its extensions to the east and the west, divides India from the rest of Asia and the world. However, this mountainous wall was not an obstacle for the inhabitants of the country to operate lucrative trade routes. At all periods both settlers and traders have found their ways over the high and desolate passes into India, while Indians have carried their commerce and culture beyond the nation’s frontiers by the same route.5 The Silk Route was one such example. Those who traversed the ‘Silk Route’ such as Xuanzang (also known as Hiuen Tsang), Marco Polo, Wilhelm of Rubruck, and other Jesuit priests left behind intriguing tales; tales of romance and adventure so titillating that they make the heart ache for a similar journey.6 A question arises here: ‘was the Silk Route a major trading route for India during the early age?’ Recorded history interprets the 2,200 years old Silk Route as the rough road connecting ancient China with ancient India, Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, and the fringes of Europe.7 The existence of a maritime version of the Silk Route predates the overland Silk Route.8 Countless authors have written about how lucrative India’s trade with China was on the Silk Route9 and how religious traffic on the Silk Route had became a two-way affair with Chinese Buddhists heading for Khotan, Kashmir and beyond in search of texts, relics and spiritual guidance.10 One Chinese monk, Xuanzang, outshone all in providing clarity on India’s trade. Xuanzang left Dunhuang in 629 CE for a pilgrimage-cum-research trip to the Buddhist ‘Holy Land’ of India.11 In the early 5th century another Chinese monk, Faxian, had gone west overland to India and returned home by sea. He had written a brief account of his travels. Monk Xuanzang had read it and noted the horrors of the sea voyage. Xuanzang opted for the overland mountain-desert route. He returned home in 645 CE from India at the head of a caravan laden with over 500 trunks of statuary and texts with a hundred monks in tow, minus only the elephant provided by Indian King Harsha Vardhana (it had fallen off a precipice).12 The size of Xuanzang’s caravan is a testimony to the flourishing trade with India. During his return, Xuanzang was on an elephant and watched helplessly as one boat carrying some of his manuscripts and flower seeds overturned in the swift current of the Indus. He waited over a month in Hund — then a truly great and prosperous city from where, it is said, Panini came so many centuries earlier — for the arrival of fresh copies and new flower seeds and so on.13 Xuanzang, by choosing the ‘Silk Route’ through the Pamirs, announced his

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The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

approach to trade with India to Emperor Tang Taizong and received a favourable reply.14 The Silk Route into India from Chinese Turkestan was by way of the Karakoram Pass that came down to Leh and went via Kargil to Srinagar. From a very delightful book by anonymous authors, titled The Himalayan Letters of Gypsy Dave and Lady Ba, it is ascertained that in Khardung (on the Indian side) at the foot of the Karakoram Pass, there were silks, felts and hashish from Turkestan waiting for southward transport. Of course, India would have exported ghee (Indian butter), spices, cotton and perhaps tanned leather to China using the Silk Route.15 Pakistani historian Salman Rashid insisted: ‘strictly speaking, the “Silk Road” took the great detour through Afghanistan. But, I am afraid, no silk came that way. Our (India & Pakistan) “Silk Road” was from Yunan province of China through Burma or by the Karakoram Pass’.16 A lesser known fact about the Silk Route is that the name did not originate because of the trade of silk on this route but because an unnamed Chinese princess smuggled the silk-making technique during her journey through this route in 440 CE. That year a prince of Khotan (today’s Hetian) — a kingdom on the rim of the Taklamakan desert — courted and won a Chinese princess. The princess smuggled out silkworm eggs by hiding them in her voluminous hairpiece.17 So for India, not only the great mountains, but even its frontiers are significant. Together, their contribution has always been substantial to the cultural, economic and political life of India. From the days of Mohenjo-Daro India came into close contact with the Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, Arabs, Central Asians and the people of Europe, the Mediterranean and Britain.18 The long panorama of India’s history, with its ups and downs and its triumphs and defeats, gave way to the British Raj in the 18th century for a long and uninterrupted 190 years.19 In 1947, when British rule ended, India became independent and the nation was endowed with 15,106 km of land frontier and 7,516 km of coastline (including island territories).20 India, situated in the southern part of Asia, shares a 4,057 km border with China, 3,323 km frontier with Pakistan and 4,096 km boundary with Bangladesh (part of Pakistan until 1971). With these three neighbours, India’s land dispute is congenital and the frontierconflict has continued unabated since Independence.21 Other smaller neighbours like Nepal, Myanmar and Bhutan share largely friendly borders of 1,751 km, 1,663 km and 699 km, respectively, with India.

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31

Apart from this, as per the original government claim, which is still valid in official papers and maps, India shares a 106-km long border with Afghanistan in the north-west of Kashmir, presently under the occupation of Pakistan. Since Independence, India has fought five pitched battles, four with Pakistan and one with China, to stabilize its frontiers. The numerous wars the country has fought within its short span of independent history have led to the militarization of the rugged border, especially in Kashmir, at enormous cost.22 Most of the debate of Kashmir’s militarization is insurgency-centric and it is normally assumed that only during the 1990s did the militarization of the province begin. The Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), extended to J&K in 1990, was a protective mechanism for the troops and nothing to do with the strength of the army.23 However, in 1948, Pakistan had already complained to the UN about the heavy presence of the Indian military in Kashmir.24 The UN-sponsored ceasefire after the 1947 war was operational for 16 years but the UN failed to persuade either side to withdraw military forces from Kashmir. This has given an opportunity to each side to increase their troops in the province.25 Each war reinforces the need to fortify Kashmir with a greater degree of military presence. The Northern Command of the Indian army, whose headquarters are in Udhampur, Kashmir, clarifies the ambiguity of the militarization process. Before Independence, it was housed in Rawalpindi and after partition, the facility was allocated to Pakistan and India created its headquarters for the northern region in Shimla, not in Kashmir. Nevertheless, after the 1947–48 war, military planners felt the need to shift the headquarters to Kashmir. The subsequent three wars in 1962, 1965 and 1971 reinforced the conviction and after 1971, the Headquarters of Northern Command was established at Udhampur. In 1972 two army corps were under its command. Only one corps was added since then and this strength has now increased to three corps.26 When insurgency began in the province, paramilitary forces swarmed the state, where the army presence was already high. Nevertheless, these five battles could not resolve India’s boundary disputes. Kashmir remains the world’s largest and most militarized disputed area with portions under the de facto administration of China (Aksai Chin) and Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas).27 It is not that the mountainous terrain of Kashmir and the Himalayas are the only disputed frontiers. The frontier boundary in between India and Pakistan in the western part known as Sir Creek

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in the arid estuary of the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat is also disputed and fragile.28 The Pakistan government’s official map not only includes the whole of Jammu & Kashmir but also it continues to show Junagarh, deep inside Gujarat, as part of Pakistan.29 Discussions with Bangladesh on the frontier issue remain stalled to delimit a small section of river boundary, to exchange the 51 Bangladeshi exclaves in India and with the 111 Indian exclaves in Bangladesh.30 India’s frontier has been continuously threatened and challenged by Pakistan and China. While China is emerging as a power centre along with India, the rank and eminence of India and Pakistan in the comity of nations is a striking study in contrast.31 The nearly seven decades of independence has quadrupled the population of India and transformed the country from a poor, neglected, ‘snake charmer’s country’ into the world’s newest economic superpower.32 A rising military power, India, with its sheer strength of economy, is now challenging the economic might of the US and other developed nations. Nevertheless, the same seven decades have diminished Pakistan from its promising origins as the the world’s largest Muslim state into an almost failed fragment of itself, more than half of its population having broken away to form independent Bangladesh in 1971.33 Immediately after Independence, while India remained committed to its cherished destiny, its national need, its national growth and its international ambition, Pakistan remained fixated with India. Nevertheless, the fixation continued in 2008 and there is a doctrinal as well as symbiotic connection between the events of the past and the Mumbai attacks.34 This has made it inevitable, at the outset, to take a closer look into those historic events. It is significant to know details of the four wars with Pakistan, India’s maiden fight with China, and the country’s fight and policies vis-à-vis the militants before moving to the Mumbai terror attacks. Explanations and deliberations in the subsequent chapters require prior knowledge, clarity and a ringside view of the country’s fragile frontiers and India’s delicate terror policies in the past.

First Frontier Fight Even before the ink of the India Independence Act 1947 had dried, Pakistan plunged into a border conflict with India. The Muslim peasants of Poonch refused to pay their land taxes to Hindu landlords and fled to Pakistan in October 1947 to complain about their alleged

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exploitation to their co-religionists. They were not only complaining about their landlords’ atrocities but also dissenting from Hindu rule.35 Poonch shopkeepers were unfurling Pakistani flags to indicate their intention. They had also acquired guns from Pakistan to challenge the Kashmir maharaja’s troops.36 Inflamed by their tale, newly independent Pakistan’s Muslim and British officers packed thousands of tribal frontier Pathans into trucks that headed down into Kashmir to wrest the valley from Hindu control.37 Nevertheless, Pakistan’s aggression was not merely based on the complaint of the Poonch peasants. Rather, the complaint acted as the provocation, which culminated in the first Indo-Pak war. There was a long and frenzied history behind the war. With India acquiring freedom, many princely states in India also got independence and the British government left the option open to them to join either of the two countries — India or Pakistan. Six states gave trouble to India before their accession — three before 15 August 1947 when India became independent and three after Independence.38 Travancore, Bhopal and Jodhpur refused to sign the Instrument of Accession and required calibrated persuasion to sign the document before 15 August. Hyderabad, Junagadh and Kashmir refused to join India even after 15 August. Hyderabad and Junagadh joined the Indian Union subsequently and Pakistan could not do much about it.39 By contrast, as of 14 August 1947 (when Pakistan became independent) not a single ruler of the 10 princely states of Pakistan had acceded to the new nation.40 However, because of geographical proximity with Pakistan and because of the composition of the population of the state, Kashmir remained a bone of contention between India and Pakistan. Kashmir’s Hindu Maharaja Hari Singh remained neutral and independent when the Poonch peasants’ crisis arose.41 Persuaded by his Prime Minister Ramchandra Kak, Maharaja Hari Singh wanted to sign a ‘standstill agreement’ with both the countries. Pakistan signed the agreement, but India said it would wait and watch.42 Vying for a permanent solution on the issue of the Muslim majority province Kashmir, Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel even thought of allowing Kashmir to join Pakistan. But his mind changed when the Pakistan government accepted the accession of Hindu-majority state Junagadh.43 Openly encouraged by the Prime Minister of NWFP, Abdul Qayyum, Pathan raiders crossed the border on 22 October 1947 while the NWFP’s British governor, Sir George Cunningham, was looking the other way. The British officers who then served with the Pakistan army remained silent. Pakistan claimed that the raiders were

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tribal irregulars and not under official control or authority. However, it was clear to the world that ‘trucks, petrol, and drivers were hardly standard tribal equipments’.44 The raiders quickly captured Muzaffarabad, which subsequently became the capital of Pakistan’s Azad (Liberated) Kashmir. On 24 October 1947, when the raiders were about to threaten Srinagar, the Maharaja sought military assistance from India. A wise suggestion came from Viceroy Lord Mountbatten that it would be best to secure Maharaja Hari Singh’s accession to India before committing any forces to his defence. On 26 October, a senior Congress leader, V. K. Krishna Menon, flew to Jammu where the Maharaja had taken refuge, took his signature on the Instrument of Accession and went back to Delhi.45 The next day, the Indian army reached Srinagar in as many as 28 planes to save the city from becoming a smoking ruin. The news that Indian troops had landed in Srinagar infuriated Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Governor General of Pakistan. Jinnah had ordered Gen. Sir Douglas Gracey, the British acting commander-inchief (the C-in-C General Sir Frank Walter Messervy was away on leave) to attack Kashmir. Gen. Gracey refused Jinnah’s order because Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, who was the Supreme Commander of both Indian and Pakistan armies, overruled British officers to take part in a war between India and Pakistan.46 General Auchinleck informed Jinnah that while India had the right to send troops to Kashmir, which had acceded to it, Pakistan did not. If Jinnah persisted, Auchinleck threatened that he would remove all British officers from both sides.47 As Pakistan had a greater dependency on British officers considering the proportion of Britons holding senior command, Jinnah cancelled his order, but protested to the UN to intercede. The Indian army, after securing Srinagar, reclaimed Baramula, Poonch, Kahuta and Uri from the infiltrators. On 1 November 1947, Lord Mountbatten met Jinnah in Lahore on a peace mission.48 On 27 November, the Pakistani Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, came to Delhi to have a face-to-face discussion with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. But there was no visible solution available to both sides. By mid-December 1947, Nehru told his cabinet ‘what is happening in Kashmir state is not merely a frontier raid but a regular war’.49 Meanwhile, on the advice of Mountbatten, India approached the UN on 1 January 1948 to help clear the northern parts of what it said was an illegal occupation by groups loyal to Pakistan.50 At the UN, Pakistan

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suggested the withdrawal of all armed forces in the state and to hold a plebiscite under the ‘impartial interim administration’.51 Ironically, Pakistan had rejected the idea of a plebiscite in the case of Junagadh. Affairs at the UN Security Council took an intriguing turn when British representative Philip Noel-Baker vigorously supported the Pakistani position.52 With the new intrigue at play at the UN, Nehru bitterly regretted his decision to go to the Security Council.53 By April 1948, Jinnah convinced Gracey to send troops into Kashmir. When the snows melted in the mountains, war recommenced in the summer of 1948. Both sides agreed to a UN-sponsored ceasefire on 5 January 1949.54 Pakistan withdrew its infiltrators and troops from the valley but not before acquiring roughly two-fifths of Kashmir. India lost the territory called ‘Azad Kashmir’ (13,297 km) and the ‘Northern Areas’ (72,496 km) to Pakistan after the war.55 Shaksgam Valley fell within the northern areas before it was ceded to China in 1963.56 India was allowed to maintain a minimum military strength in the remaining part of the state to enforce law and order. With the enforcement of the ceasefire, the frontier of India was redefined, albeit unofficially, which subsequently became the official frontier.57 Pakistan lost the war but partially achieved its objective.58 It was intriguing that standing at an advantageous position from the very beginning, legally and militarily, India won the war but lost a considerable portion of the country’s landmass to a defeated and wounded Pakistan.59 This pattern, as we would see, continued in the subsequent border conflicts as well.

A Cartographic War An awakened Nehru did not miss the implications of the border conflict of 1947. Immediately after the war, the Indian prime minister rushed to the north-eastern frontier to guard the provinces and preempt any infiltration from China. India and China’s frontier security, separated by the great Himalayan mountain chain, is further secured by the existence of two independent buffer states, Nepal and Bhutan, and one semi-independent buffer state, Tibet.60 Without losing time, in April 1954, Nehru codified a treaty with China, the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’, popularly known as Panchsheel.61 A visibly relieved Nehru thought that with this treaty, India had managed to remove every possibility of war with China and announced that if

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the principles of Panchsheel were recognized, ‘there would hardly be any conflict and certainly no war’.62 All too soon, Nehru was proved wrong. Fresh from the glow of their newly acquired independence and under the stewardship of dynamic nationalistic leaderships, India and China had their first frontier-related standoff for the first time in July 1958. The dispute did not occur on the grounds of the India– China border but on the map prepared by China. That year, China Pictorial, the official Chinese magazine, printed a map of China, which included a large part of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA, part of Arunachal Pradesh) and Laddakh as Chinese territory.63 Annoyed with the development, the following month, India summoned a Chinese embassy official in New Delhi to register its protest. The matter remained unresolved throughout 1958. The prime ministers of both countries, Jawaharlal Nehru and Chou En-lai, started correspondence at the end of that year. Nehru reminded En-lai how the latter had recognized the India– China boundary during their meeting in 1956. But En-lai refused Nehru’s claim and told him that China and India shared no treaty on the boundary and that the McMahon Line was an example of British Imperialism. In the subsequent correspondence, Nehru reminded En-lai about the presence of boundary agreements, such as the Kashmir and Lhasa agreement of 1842 and the McMahon Line agreement of 1913–14. On 17 September 1842, a treaty was signed between the rulers of Laddakh and Tibet demarcating the boundary line between the two countries. Nehru also informed his Chinese counterpart that since the marking of the McMahon Line in 1914 until the year 1947, no Chinese government had objected to the line. But a defiant En-lai told Nehru not to insist on giving accreditation to the British imperialist policy, and the correspondence thus continued without an outcome. A war cloud was gathering over the Himalayas during the closing of the 1950s decade when the fourteenth Dalai Lama entered Assam on 31 March 1959 after crossing the McMahon Line. Indian officials received the Dalai Lama at Tezpur and Prime Minister Nehru gave an audience to him in New Delhi subsequently. China was infuriated with the fact that not only had India offered political asylum to the Dalai Lama but that the country’s liberal atmosphere also allowed antiChinese propaganda through the Dalai Lama. Sino-Tibetan conflict has a long history. The ancient land of Tibet unified its territory in the

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7th century and in 822 CE signed a peace treaty with China and delineated its border. However, Tibet’s sovereignty changed hands among its three claimants — the descendants of Tibetan rulers, the Mongols and the Chinese rulers during the period from 1244 to 1720. In 1598, Mongol ruler Altan Khan started the institution of Dalai Lama — the spiritual ruler of Tibet. Since 1720, China has treated Tibet as its fief. In 1912, Tibet declared independence. In 1950, Mao Zedong, the Chinese President, enforced China’s claim to Tibet and in 1951 Tibetan leaders were forced to sign the ‘Seventeen Point Agreement’ with China, which professes to guarantee Tibetan autonomy and to respect the Buddhist religion, but allows the establishment of Chinese civil and military headquarters at Lhasa. Since then China has been infuriated by any Tibetan demand of autonomy and foreign intervention in Tibet. Domestic public opinion continued to be strongly against China’s cartographic invasion, which soon converted into a Government of India White Paper in September 1959.64 The first provocation for a war came from the Chinese side in October 1959.The Chinese army attacked and killed nine Indian soldiers and arrested another nine at the Kongka Pass area of Laddakh. This prompted New Delhi to shift a division of its army from the western border to the northeastern side of the country. As a last ditch effort to avoid a frontier conflict, Nehru invited En-lai in April 1960 to New Delhi. Chou En-lai spent a week there, meeting Nehru every day for a total of 20 long hours of discussion. The official conversation is still a secret, but part of it infiltrated to the public domain by word of mouth, and said that the Chinese offered that India keep Tawang and its environs and cede Aksai Chin and the road linking Sinkiang and Tibet in exchange.65 The deal failed, and Nehru reported to the Indian Parliament that ‘in spite of all efforts no solution was found’. It was during this time that Defence Minister V. K. Krishna Menon locked horns with his Chief of Army Staff Gen. K. S. Thimayya over the appointment of an officer named B. M. Kaul.66 Gen. Thimmaya submitted his resignation thanks to Menon’s subduing tactics. However, Nehru persuaded Gen. Thimmaya to continue at his post as Nehru could foresee trouble in the distance from China. This incident reduced the popularity of Menon in the eyes of those ruling as well as the Opposition and people at large. In Parliament, Gandhian J. B. Kripalani started a blistering attack against Menon while the original target was Nehru. A stunner inside and outside Parliament, Kripalani authenticated before members

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of parliament how India lost 12, 000 square miles of territory to China without striking a single blow.67 Attempting to explain that India had lost little because of the occupation of Aksai Chin by China, Nehru said that Aksai Chin was a barren and inhospitable land where ‘not a blade of grass grows’. Nehru’s remark and observation was unacceptable to many. A highly caustic personal comment was waiting for him not from the opposition bench but from fellow Congress MP from Moradabad Mahavir Tyagi. Tyagi retorted, pointing to his bald head: ‘[n]othing grows here . . . should it be cut off or given away to somebody else?’68 The effect of the comment was double-edged as Nehru himself was bald as well. When Nehru refused to sacrifice Menon, Kripalani decided to dislodge the defence minister by defeating him in the ensuing parliamentary election of February 1962. To challenge Menon, Kripalani left his safe Sitamarhi (Bihar) seat and filed his nomination from North Bombay. However, despite the outpouring of support for Kripalani, Nehru’s political manoeuvring ensured victory for Menon, who outperformed Kripalani by more than 100,000 votes.69 Under ever-growing domestic pressure, Nehru demanded withdrawal as a pre-condition for any settlement and arbitration with the Chinese. The Chinese tried to persuade Nehru to drop this precondition. In April 1961 the Chinese explored the possibility of New Delhi accepting arbitration and in May 1961 they asked their Burmese friend to induce Nehru to negotiate on the China–Burma–India trijunction issue. Nehru turned down both attempts. As a rude shock to the Chinese, India successfully engaged Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet prime minister, to portray China among other communists as an adventurist communist country.70 Anxious to get Nehru to talk and to deny Nikita Khrushchev a chance to brand China as an adventurist country, the Chinese moved beyond Mongolia, Burma and Nepal in early 1961 to suggest border talks with the Pakistanis. This manoeuvre rekindled Indian anger. It showed the self-defeating aspect of the Chinese policy to press Nehru in various clever ways, but to offer him no concessions. Finally, Nehru sent one of his high officials to Peking to make a final attempt to resolve the conflict amicably. On 13 July 1961, R. K. Nehru, the secretary general of the Ministry of External Affairs, arrived in Peking and met Liu Shao-chi, the Chairman of the People’s Republic of China. Liu Shao-chi scolded R. K. Nehru as if he was a small boy for coming to China only to demand Chinese withdrawal and to

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insist that the border be delimited. As a result of the rebuke, relations further deteriorated. Even Nehru indicated that he had no choice but to adopt a tougher attitude toward the Chinese.71 The internal as well as external bickering continued until a fullfledged war started on 10 October 1962. Declassified secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) papers revealed that Nehru’s naiveté and Chinese deception led to the Sino-Indian frontier conflict of 1962. Chinese policy towards India in 1961 operated on contradictory assumptions that it was necessary to ‘unite’ with Nehru and simultaneously to ‘struggle’ against him.72 The Chinese response to Nehru was to treat him as an implacable foe, at first letting his own words in September 1961 prove that he was not only anti-Chinese but also anti-Soviet, and then attacking him openly in November and December 1961. The Chinese army decimated the Indian troops, who were fighting the war after a draining march to the Namka Chu valley without reinforcements or rations. A strange twist of fate also occurred in the midst of war. On 18 October 1961, Lieutentant General B. M. Kaul, who was leading the Indian army against Chinese aggression, was evacuated to Delhi from the frontier due to acute chest pain. Because of his absence, the Indian troops remained leaderless until 23 October. Surprisingly, on 24 October, the Chinese troops halted their advance because Indian forces had retreated into more fortified positions around Se La and Bombdi La which would be difficult to assault and Chou sent a letter to Nehru proposing a negotiated boundary settlement, which restarted again on 15 November. Meanwhile, as the Indian troops were leaderless and offered no resistance, China occupied Tawang on 25 October.73 Fearing the impending Chinese persecution, the residents of Tezpur, Assam, fled further south. The Indian frontier was occupied up to Guwahati. Bank and government officials of Tezpur burned papers and currency notes before they left the town for Guwahati. More surprises were in store. On 22 November, instead of entering the plains of Assam, the Chinese announced a unilateral ceasefire. After decisively defeating their Indian opponent, they pulled back to the north of the McMahon Line in NEFA and to the pre-war position in Laddakh.74 After the Sino-Indian war, India was deprived of 12, 000 square miles of its territory.75 The border shrank for the second time. Nehru

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died in the hope that since India and China were meeting for the first time as modern nations on the borders, a certain degree of conflict was natural before they could stabilize their frontiers. However, as time proved, instead of stabilization, the frontier remained a permanent conflagration point for the two countries.

The Familiar Challenge Coming back to the Western border, the ghost of 1947 refused to die in Kashmir. The 1960s threw some great challenges at India and Pakistan. A couple of years after the Chinese defeat, in 1964, Prime Minister Nehru died and was succeeded by the lesser known Lal Bahadur Shastri. At the time, the Kashmir issue was still to be resolved and Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of Kashmir, had changed his usually pro-India posture and become a rebel. Shastri sent Abdullah to jail in 1965 because of Abdullah’s secret talks with Chinese Prime Minister Chou En-lai in Algiers. Although the content of the Abdullah–En-lai conversation was not disclosed, it was assumed that Abdullah had discussed the possibility of an independent Kashmir with the Chinese premier.76 Meanwhile, the internal political condition of Pakistan was reaching boiling point. While the first 17 years after India’s independence was spearheaded by one prime minister and two presidents, the first nine years after Pakistan’s independence witnessed the rule of four governor-generals (including Jinnah: the post was abolished in 1956), two presidents (the post was started in 1956) and seven prime ministers. With such an unstable background, Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Ayub Khan deposed Iskandar Mirza, the president, and Sir Feroze Khan Noon, the prime minister on 27 October 1958 in a bloodless coup.77 Gen. Khan abolished the post of prime minister and became the president on the same day. The exasperated people of Pakistan welcomed the dictatorship. Gen. Khan left the Kashmir policy to his young foreign minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.78 In the first week of April 1965, Pakistan, after seven years of stable rule under the dictatorship of Gen. Khan, started a frontier conflict with India at the Rann of Kutch. The conflict was initially limited to the border police from both sides but as the size and scale of the encounter increased, armed forces of both the countries replaced the border police and soon they witnessed intermittent skirmishes. The Pakistani army pushed India 40 miles inside the international

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boundary. In June 1965, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson successfully persuaded both countries to end hostilities and set up a tribunal to resolve the dispute. The verdict, which came in 1968, saw Pakistan being awarded 317 square miles of the Rann of Kutch, as against its original claim of 3,500 square miles.79 Bhutto, who believed that the tiny Shastri was no match for the giant Ayub Khan, forged an ISI report to convince his president that the Indian military’s crushing defeat at the hands of the Chinese in 1962, Nehru’s death in 1964 and Sheikh Abdullah’s arrest in 1965 had placed India in a weaker position and provided Pakistan with the best chance to liberate Kashmir. ‘Operation Gibraltar’ started on 5 August 1965, when 33,000 Pakistani soldiers crossed the LoC dressed as Kashmiri locals and headed for various areas within Kashmir.80 Bhutto instructed Radio Pakistan to announce that a popular uprising had broken out in the valley. Pakistani planners thought that Kashmiris would join hands with the Pakistan army to liberate the province but contrary to Pakistan’s belief, the local population was mostly apathetic to the intruders. Some of them were even handed over to the police and Pakistan’s hoped-for rebellion did not materialize. Most of Gen. Khan’s infiltrators over the high-altitude line froze to death before Pakistan launched its reserve plan, ‘Operation Grand Slam’ against Jammu from Sialkot, hoping to capture Akhnur and thus cut the only rail link from India to Kashmir. India’s strategic planners, however, were much wiser than Gen. Khan and Bhutto. They opened the floodgates of their nearest dams and trapped Pakistan’s tank corps in deep mud. After that, India launched a three-pronged attack across the Indo-Pakistani international border in Punjab, aimed at the defenceless capital Karachi and an unguarded Lahore. Bhutto had assured Gen. Khan that this could never happen, saying that he was positive that Shastri would never dare to attack Lahore.81 India’s decision to open up a new venue of war in the Punjab disturbed Khan’s calculation and therefore ‘Operation Grand Slam’, like ‘Operation Gibraltar’, failed miserably.82 It was amazing that the eastern border along with East Pakistan remained silent through the entire period of war. Intelligence failure contributed to the terrible war planning of Pakistan. General Khan was angered over the ISI’s intelligence failure, as the agency could not locate an Indian armoured division and locating them was crucial since they were moving to attack Pakistan.

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Brigadier Riazat Hussain was summoned to the office of Gen. Ayub Khan in Rawalpindi, where Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was also present. Bhutto told the brigadier with adequate sarcasm that ‘the armoured division of India was not a needle in a haystack’ and that the ISI had failed to locate it. Gen. Khan retorted, ‘It is a monster and not a needle’. He kept pressing Brigadier Riaz Hussain to explain to him what had gone wrong with the intelligence service. In a quivering voice, Brigadier Riaz Hussain replied, ‘Sir, from June 1964, Military Intelligence has been given political assignments on elections and post-election repercussions’.83 That was why the ISI and MI had failed to give intelligence inputs. It was evident that at the behest of political/military masters, the country’s military intelligence had also started consorting with the ISI to interfere in the internal politics of the country as early as the 1960s. Bhutto pleaded with the Chinese for diplomatic support but they did not do anything other than issuing a couple of statements in support of Pakistan. On 6 September, as India’s tanks rolled in within sight of the Lahore International Airport, Gen. Khan faced the most humiliating defeat of his life. A terrified US requested a temporary ceasefire to allow it to evacuate its citizens from Lahore. In desperation, Gen. Khan phoned US President Lyndon Johnson, begging him to arrange an immediate ceasefire with India. The same day the UN Security Council met to discuss the matter. U. Thant, then UN Secretary General, met Indian and Pakistani leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad and got them to agree to a ceasefire. Johnson also spoke with Russian Premier Alexei Kosygin, who invited Gen. Khan and Shastri to Tashkent (now in Uzbekistan) for a peace conference. On 22 September, hostility between the two countries was finally called off.84 Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Gen. Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Agreement, agreeing to withdraw to pre-August lines no later than 25 February 1966. Prime Minister Shastri suffered a fatal heart attack at Tashkent soon after the signing of the agreement. Yet again, India won the war but lost 317 square miles of land to Pakistan. Although Prime Minister Shastri consoled his countrymen, saying that India had conceded only 9.43 per cent of what Pakistan had claimed, the fact remained that Pakistan, without military success, had benefitted from the incursion and improved its defensibility by the gain of tactical ground into the bargain.85

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The Lost Opportunity Pakistan’s terrible defeat in the 1965 war created public resentment against Gen. Ayub Khan, which forced him to hand over power to his Chief of Army Staff Gen. Yahya Khan on 25 March 1969. Gen. Yahya Khan had his work cut out for him, as the country was in a state of disarray. When Gen. Ayub Khan left the helms of the affair, a deep-rooted inter-provincial rivalry was smouldering between the Urdu-speaking Muslim conglomeration of Punjabi–Pashtun–Mohajirdominated West Pakistan and the Bengali-speaking Muslims of East Pakistan.86 The provincial conflict was rooted in the faulty policies and preferences of Pakistan since its independence. When Jinnah had paid his first, brief and only visit to East Pakistan from 19–28 March 1948 he had announced that West Pakistan’s Urdu, rather than East Pakistan’s Bengali, was to be Pakistan’s sole national language.87 This announcement was enough for the Bengali Muslims to understand their subordinate status. Since the very beginning, East Pakistan had been reeling under a sense of deprivation, since Jinnah had accepted the ‘husk, the mutilated, truncated and the moth-eaten Pakistan’.88 This situation percolated unresolved to Gen. Yahya Khan. Not only this, Gen. Yahya Khan had to face another, far more complex challenge of converting Pakistan from a dictatorship to a democracy. Gen. Yahya Khan dealt with the second challenge first and called for the first ever general election in Pakistan, based on adult franchise, in December 1970. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won 88 out of 144 seats in West Pakistan, and Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s National Awami League (NAL) secured an overwhelming 167 out of 169 seats in East Pakistan. Rehman had won the election on the promise of liberating East Pakistan from West Pakistan’s military junta.89 The writing on the wall was clear. Rightly fearing an impending disintegration, Bhutto advised Gen. Yahya Khan to defer the convening of the National Assembly. Annoyed by this blatant disregard of the constitution, the National Awami League responded with an indefinite general strike in East Pakistan. The Pakistani military decided to quell these protests by force and a state-sponsored pogrom followed. Estimates vary on the total number of people killed in East Pakistan as a result. The Pakistan government appointed the Hamoodur Rahman Commission to look into it, which put the number of deaths at a mere 26,000.90 The Bangladeshi authorities claim that three million people

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were killed and international observers calculate it at not less than 200,000.91 However, there was consensus on the number of refugees, eight million, who left Bangladesh to flood the Indian border states. Richard Nixon’s White House had had ample telegraphic warnings about the Pakistani army’s Dhaka massacre from Archer Blood, the state department’s consular officer in East Pakistan. Archer Blood witnessed the entire events and sent numerous cables to Nixon, who ignored all his pleas for humanitarian aid.92 Nixon was preoccupied with his top-secret plan to send his national security adviser Henri Kissinger to China to meet with Chou En-lai and Mao Tse-tung, as the prelude to his own flight to Beijing to announce the US recognition of the People’s Republic of China. While Bangladesh burned and its refugees fled in terror, Kissinger flew to Islamabad via New Delhi in July 1971 to meet Gen. Khan, who had set the stage for the Sino-US friendship treaty.93 Meanwhile, wounded by the state of unpreparedness in the 1965 war, the Indian intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), prepared a detailed report in January 1971 on the military strength and constitutional crisis of Pakistan. The RAW alerted the India government that Pakistani generals might undertake a diversionary adventure in Jammu and Kashmir94 to deflect people’s attention from their internal crises. To pre-empt such an attempt, India started training the Bengali guerrillas who had fled to the country from Pakistan along with their refugee brethren. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had been observing the secret triangular talks among US–Pakistan–China. Fearing the regional repercussion of the new alliance, she travelled to Moscow in September 1971 and sealed a 20-year treaty with the Kremlin. She reached out to Nixon as well in November 1971, only to be browbeaten at the White House on India’s role in Pakistan’s crisis. While Mrs Gandhi was away, India’s military participation in the East Pakistan–West Pakistan conflict intensified. Gen. Yahya Khan decided to attack India from the western side. War ensued in Kashmir and Punjab and the Indian navy moved towards Karachi. When Mrs Gandhi returned to New Delhi from her foreign trip, the Indian army was irretrievably involved in the conflict with Pakistan. Mrs Gandhi ordered her Parsi Field Marshal, Sam Manekshaw, and Sikh second-in-command, Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora, to move east over Bengal’s border.95 Mrs Gandhi also started her own secret channel with Mujibur Rehman. A former student of Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan in rural Bengal, Mrs Gandhi

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could speak to Rehman in Bengali, which further strengthened their personal bond and brought them closer.96 Gen. Yahya Khan requested the US to restrain Mrs Gandhi and as a result, the Nixon administration sent a message through the US ambassador in New Delhi, Kenneth Keating, to her. Mrs Gandhi told the US ambassador that Yahya’s problems had been self-created and ‘we are not in a position to make this easier for him’. She conveyed to the US that India was being asked to allow the misdeeds of Yahya to stand unopposed and ‘we are not going to allow that’.97 The Indian army captured Dhaka on 5 December and on 6 December 1971, India formally recognized Bangladesh. The Indo-Soviet treaty and the US’s war in Vietnam restrained the Americans from jumping into another theatre of war in South Asia. However, Nixon sent the nuclear-armed US aircraft carrier Enterprise from the Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal, supposedly to ‘evacuate refugees’. Mrs Gandhi reciprocated this intimidating gesture by urging her nuclear scientists to work harder to build India’s own atomic bombs, the first of which would be exploded three years later in Rajasthan’s desert.98 On 13 December, Gen. Yahya Khan sent a message to his general, A. K. A. Niazi, to surrender before the Indian army. Niazi waited a day to search for any last options, before requesting the American consul general of Dacca, Archer Blood, on 15 December, to convey his willingness to surrender to New Delhi. Blood relayed the message to New Delhi and on 16 December, Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora flew into Dacca to accept a signed instrument of surrender.99 In a roaring voice amidst chants and slogans, the same evening, Mrs Gandhi announced in the Lok Sabha that ‘Dacca is now the free capital of a free country’. Mrs Gandhi was admired for standing up to the bullying tactics of the US, and for so coolly planning the dismemberment of the enemy. However, Nixon went berserk and told his national security adviser that ‘The Indians are bastard [sic] anyway. Pakistan thing makes your heart sick [sic]. For them to be done so by the Indians and after we had warned the bitch’.100 Bhutto reached Shimla on 28 June 1972 along with his daughter Benazir and 92 PPP/government officials. Bhutto admitted that as the victor in the war, India had all the cards in its hands.101 The literal translation of Bhutto’s admission could be that ‘there was no bar on India to codify a treaty on Kashmir with Pakistan’ on that victorious occasion. However, all the cards were either squandered by Mrs Gandhi or

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left unused by her officials in Shimla. When the accord was signed on 2 July, Pakistan got back its 93,000 prisoners of war and 5,000 square miles of Pakistani desert captured by Indian forces. Pakistan did ‘not compromise on Kashmir’ either.102 Bhutto managed to convince Mrs. Gandhi not to press for a solution on Kashmir, as that would lead to the toppling of his government by the military. The Indian delegation insisted on a clause that the two countries would settle all their differences ‘by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations’ and the UN ceasefire line in Kashmir was renamed as the ‘Line of Control’ (LoC).103 There was no mention of any future plebiscite in Kashmir. Pakistan held India responsible for the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. To outside observers, the creation of Bangladesh pointed out the weakness of Pakistani nationhood based only on the commonality of religion. But Pakistan’s leaders interpreted it as proof of their worst fear coming true that India had succeeded in dividing Pakistan, making it all the more necessary to shore up the fissures in Pakistan with a strong military and anti-Indian Islamic ideology.104 Indian signatories interpreted the conversion of the ceasefire line into the LoC as the legal possession of Kashmir by India. For India, this meant that the phase of international pressure to hold a plebiscite was over and they had attained closure over Kashmir by securing a Pakistani commitment not to try to alter the status quo by force. The Indian side could not envision the fact that Pakistan would disturb India’s control over Kashmir through the use of proxy forces and try to alter the status quo. After the division, Pakistan’s armed forces were ideologically so insecure that they developed a strong belief that it was only religion that could save the rest of Pakistan.105 After the Shimla accord, the ISI devised a policy wherein Pakistan would not alter the spirit of the Shimla, but they would still wage a war against India for its 1971 betrayal.106 The year 1971 is considered the watershed year when Pakistani leadership, military or civilian, started patronizing Islamic forces and extremist organizations to settle scores with India.107 The ISI also started exporting militants into Kashmir and supported rebellion in other parts of the country to ‘bleed India with a thousand cuts’.108 Once the opportunity was lost in Shimla, India could not get another chance. The country remained a consistent target of periodical Pakistani terror blows. For the first time, India did not lose a single inch of land after the war but did not gain any either. The war resulted in Pakistan losing

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half of its territory, half of its population, half of its navy, a quarter of its air force, a third of its army and a significant portion of its economy.109

A War inside the Frontier The last Soviet tank left Afghanistan on 15 February 1989 after a decade-long war with the US–Pak backed Afghan Mujahideen. The Soviet–Afghan war was primarily a US–USSR war, where Pakistan was the Trojan horse for the US.110 The Afghan war is not important for our study but with the war in Afghanistan slowing down in 1989, the vast network of training camps constructed for the Afghan Mujahideen were transformed by the ISI into indoctrination centres for the Islamists, who were later sent to Kashmir to replicate their Afghan success.111 As the ISI was triumphant after defeating the former Soviet Union, Islamabad picked up the discontent prevailing among the Kashmiri youths in the valley and quickly supported the insurgency, which started in the state in 1989. In the 1990s, the efforts of the ISI were aided by a series of political blunders by the leaders in New Delhi. India was nearly blind to the strategic developments in neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan in the aftermath of the Russian withdrawal. The country’s leadership was busy with internal matters such as the Punjab disturbances, political skullduggery and sinking under the burden of scandals and insensitivity of the political and intelligence community.112 Islamabad took advantage of these factors and gradually escalated terrorism in Kashmir. Although terrorism had started in Kashmir from the 1970s, much before the division of Pakistan, it gained momentum only after the year 1989. In early 1971, two Al-Fatah activists hijacked the Srinagar to Jammu Indian Airlines flight Ganga, to help gain the release of two of their associates held in a Kashmir jail.113 This incident was considered as the starting of militancy in Kashmir. Pakistan allowed the Indian Airlines flight to land in Lahore, where it was set on fire by one of the terrorists. Thousands of Pakistanis greeted the hijackers and Bhutto, the foreign minister, embraced the two hijackers on the stage.114 The uprising in Kashmir through the 1990s allowed the Pakistani military to recruit and sponsor new Islamic militant groups, which in turn trained thousands of Pakistani fighters for both Kashmir and Afghanistan. By the end of 1992, India also faced the predicament of

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some mercenaries from Afghanistan, the Gulf countries and Africa joining terrorist and secessionist groups.115 Alistair Lamb’s book, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, backing Pakistan’s claim on Kashmir and US Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphael’s statement questioning the legal basis of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India in October 1947,116 led to the further deterioration of the Kashmir situation. But the scenario changed a little when Pakistan’s relations with the US worsened in 1993 and President Bill Clinton placed Pakistan on a watch-list of state sponsors of terrorism because of the ISI’s open involvement in training Kashmiri insurgents. After consistent pressure from the US administration, the Pakistani army was forced to remove the ISI chief, Lieutentant General Javed Nasir and relocate its training camps from PoK to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.117 While most countries (barring some Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey) acknowledged Pakistan’s interference in Kashmir, they did not (and still do not) accept the Indian view that the entire problem arose only because of Pakistan’s political and material support to such forces and to foreign mercenaries. The Kashmir uprising of the late 1980s and frequent change of successive weak central governments in New Delhi allowed Pakistan to internationalize the Kashmir issue by training and transporting terrorists from other countries. By 1990, Pakistan had floated several terrorist organizations, besides patronizing the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). In order to escalate their Islamist jihad, the ISI had started supporting terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizb-ul Mujahideen, Hizb-e-Islami, Jamait-e-Islami and Jammat-ul-Ulema-i-Islami in the early 1990s. Harkat-ul Mujahideen, later renamed as Harkat-ul Ansar, had been set up with ISI support in the mid-1990s as a fringe militant group primed to carry out spectacular acts of terrorism in Kashmir.118 New Delhi was caught unprepared by the sudden flaring-up of militancy in Kashmir. India’s inability to provide a strong response allowed several devastating terror acts to take place in Kashmir and other parts of India. Six successful plane hijackings were undertaken by Kashmiri terrorists between the years 1981 and 1993 before the infamous Kandahar hijacking of 1999. India committed compromise after compromise with its national security, either by releasing jailed militants in exchange for hostages or by giving safe passage to terrorists.119 The most significant compromise took place on 8 December 1989 when JKLF militants kidnapped Rubaiya Saeed, daughter of

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Mufti Mohammed Saeed, the newly sworn-in home minister in Prime Minister V. P. Singh’s cabinet. A settlement was reached on 13 December 1989 with the release of five Kashmiri separatists and one Pakistani citizen, Sher Mohammed Khan Azad. Encouraged by the outcome, terrorists soon attempted another kidnap and on 7 February 1991, Jammu and Kashmir Student Liberation Front (JKSLF) militants kidnapped Nahida Imtiaz, the daughter of Member of Parliament Saifuddin Soz. In the events that followed, Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar gave in to the terrorists’ demand and released Mustaq Ahmed, a Pakistan-trained secessionist. In August 1991, Indian Oil’s Executive Director K. Doraiswamy was kidnapped in Srinagar by the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen terrorist group. The government agreed to release nine militants in exchange for the safety of Doraiswamy.120 These successful heists by the militants encouraged them to carry out many more such attempts. During September–October 1993, 18 armed JKLF militants occupied the holy Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar and held nearly 170 civilians hostage for six weeks. Despite almost having the militants in the bag the government again chose to surrender and the authority allowed safe passage to the militants on the understanding that they would give themselves up to the local police and not to the army, and their bail applications would not be contested. In six months, all of them were freed or escaped. The decision-maker then was Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao.121 These compromises proved that India’s fight with terrorism was toothless. The lack of commitment by India to take a tough line against militants invited many future attacks. Pakistan-sponsored militants not only attacked Kashmir but they also targeted mainland India. The first time Pakistan used the maritime route was during the year 1993 when Research Department Explosive (RDX) was brought through the sea route from Pakistan and used for the blast in Mumbai on 12 March 1993, which killed 257 people.122 During this trip, terrorists did not carry the explosives with them. Dawood Ibrahim and his criminal network along with the ISI conspired the Mumbai blasts. One Mr Somnath Kakaram Thapa, posted as Additional Collector of Customs, Preventive, Bombay during the period from January to February 1993, had specific information and knowledge that arms, ammunitions and explosives were being smuggled into the country by Dawood’s group. As Additional Collector of Customs, Preventive, Thapa was legally bound to

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prevent it but he helped Dawood’s group in facilitating the arrival of explosives. Within nine days of the blasts, over a dozen suspects were booked under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA). Their confessions helped unravel the sordid conspiracy by Pakistan. For the Mumbai blasts, terrorists had been provided with explosives, chemical timers and hand grenades from the Pakistan army’s stocks. While it was difficult to ascertain the origin of the explosives, the timers were proved to have been taken from stocks supplied by the US to Pakistan in the 1980s for use in Afghanistan and the grenades had been manufactured in a Pakistan government ordnance factory.123 Despite the availability of evidence in this case, judicial procedure took 14 years to convict 96 persons, out of which 11 were sent to the gallows and 20 sentenced to life imprisonment. But all those convicted were only foot soldiers and the big fishes such as Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon are still in Pakistan under ISI protection.

The Disguised War In the midst of the heightened terror activities in Kashmir and other parts of India, Pakistan made its fourth attempt to wrest Kashmir from Indian control. In November–December 1998, just one month after Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s elevation as chief of army staff by the Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, officers of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI) units in the 80 Brigade Sector and a small group of senior army officers asked for an operation to be carried out in Kashmir at the army level.124 The plan was to infiltrate four battalions of the NLI stationed in 80 Brigade Sector into Kargil heights and take possession of the Srinagar–Leh road to delink the Indian supply to the Laddakh and Siachen sectors. The Indian infantry had abandoned these heights at the onset of winter and snowfall, an annual routine since 1948. Pakistan occupied the heights without firing a single bullet. There are various conflicting claims and assertions available on the background of the Kargil war plan. Once the small group of top army officers had taken a decision, the plan was discussed briefly with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at Skurdu and Kel on 29 January 1999 and 5 February 1999, respectively.125 India’s Kargil Review Committee recorded that the prime minister and other service chiefs received their first formal briefing on the Kargil plan in April 1999.126 In an interview, the late Benazir Bhutto claimed that she was presented with a Kargillike plan on two occasions — once by Chief of Army Staff Mirza Aslam

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Beg in 1989 and again by then Director General of Military Operations Pervez Musharraf in the mid-1990s.127 Irrespective of the background, it is unlikely that a prime minister would not be aware of an impending war his army was about to fight. As time progressed, the ISI and the Pakistan army’s plan to incite a rebellion in Kashmir with the participation of local unemployed youth did not take off.128 For months, the ISI worked in Jammu and Kashmir to ensure the involvement of locals from Jammu, Srinagar, Laddakh, Kargil, Astor, Baltistan, and Gilgit with a new plan called ‘dollar-induced jihad’, in which they would be paid in dollars in exchange for their support. Finally, irrespective of the participation of the locals, Pakistan started its Kargil operation.129 Dressed in civilian clothes, Pakistani army personnel captured unattended Indian posts inside Indian territories. As a result, not only did Pakistan’s plan to resurrect a revolution against India’s rule in Kashmir fail but the country also had to face international ire, which worked in favour of India, who declared Pakistan an aggressor.130 By the third week of May 1999, when Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee began to have some idea of the extent of the penetration of Pakistani soldiers, he called Sharif on their hotline and demanded an explanation of what had inspired such a blatant violation of the Indo-Pakistani Shimla accord. Sharif feigned ignorance, insisting that the army had acted without his prior permission or knowledge. As the ice began to melt in Kargil in May, India decided to escalate the war vertically, by using airpower and by bringing 400-odd Bofors guns to the frontier. Soon, India claimed victory as Pakistan lost more than a thousand uniformed men.131 The unlucky martyrs of the Pakistan army could not get an honourable burial from their state, as the dead bodies remained unclaimed on the rugged and terrainous mountains of Kashmir.132 Acceptance of those bodies by Pakistan was tantamount to proving the direct involvement of the Pakistan army. Sharif rang up American President Bill Clinton to save Pakistan from the escalation of the conflict. Clinton invited Vajpayee and Sharif in July 1999 to Washington. Vajpayee refused the invitation, stating that Sharif should be counselled to restrain his generals. Clinton then wanted to send an envoy to Vajpayee, which Vajpayee again refused, saying that Pakistan needed the service of the envoy more than India. Sharif reached the White House on 4 July, where Clinton told him to pull all Pakistani troops from the LoC in Kargil and keep them out of the Indian bunkers. Sharif returned to Islamabad and ordered Musharraf

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to keep his forces clear of the LoC. On 16 July, a ceasefire ended the Kargil war defusing a potential nuclear escalation.133 In his biography In the Line of Fire, Musharraf rejected Sharif’s allegation that he did not take Sharif into confidence on the Kargil issue and furnished pictorial evidence of Sharif’s visit to Kel in PoK and his briefing there by the army high command on 5 February 1999, weeks before Vajpayee’s bus journey to Pakistan on 19 February 1999. Sharif, in his official biography, written by Sohail Warraich Khan Ghaddar Kaun, claimed that Musharraf was misleading the nation by distorting facts about the Kargil operation. Sharif said that he possessed the audio recordings of General Musharraf’s 26 May and 29 May 1999 telephonic conversations with General Aziz Khan, which proves that the general wanted to keep Sharif in the dark about the Kargil operation. An aggrieved Musharraf never forgave Sharif for his cowardice and within three months on 12 October 1999, he overthrew the Nawaz Sharif government, dismissed the National Assembly and appointed himself as the chief executive of Pakistan. The decade-old democratic rule was again replaced by dictatorship. Meanwhile, the diminishing participation of Kashmiri youth in terrorist activities compelled Pakistan to send hardened Pakistani and Afghan–Arab jihadis into Kashmir, who carried out some spectacular attacks not only in Kashmir but also in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and in other Indian cities. From 1996 onwards, these attacks were deliberately extended at the ISI’s behest throughout India. In an interview, Benazir Bhutto admitted that during the early 1990s, three crucial changes took place in the ISI’s Kashmir policy. First, the leadership of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference was replaced by Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the LeT. Second, apart from Kashmir, mainland India was added as a terror target. And third, non-military targets were also included as terror targets.134 India’s problem was compounded by the absence of a clear command structure to deal with a terrorist emergency.135 This absence of a clear command cost India dearly on 24 December 1999, when Pakistani terrorists hijacked an Indian Airlines flight, IC-814, from Kathmandu to Kandahar via Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai. Prime Minister Vajpayee was in Patna when India lost a golden chance to rescue the plane during its refuelling attempt in Amritsar. Brajesh Mishra, who was holding the twin posts of Principal Secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office and National Security Advisor, told the Fox

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History Channel that he had issued instructions to stop the plane in Amritsar. But the plane was never stopped and the reasons for this were never conveyed to him.136 Surprisingly neither the Home Ministry nor any other agency acted, as is evident from Mr Mishra’s admission that it was he who issued instructions. The plane comfortably flew to Kandahar, with Indian security officials still to understand the enormity of the incident. An agreement was reached as a humiliated Indian government sent Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh to personally deliver three dreaded terrorists, Maulana Masood Azhar, Saeed Omar Sheikh, and Mustaq Ahmed Zargar to the terrorists at Kandahar Airport in exchange for the safety of the airlines’ passengers. Three high-ranking officers of the ISI were present in Kandahar to strike a deal when on 31 December 1999 the Indian government freed the three terrorists. India’s then Intelligence Bureau (IB) Chief, Ajit Doval, who was negotiating the deal in Kandahar reported that during the swap the hijackers forget to turn off their receivers. Doval revealed that he and his colleagues ‘hear[d] the voices of the ISI guys, telling them what to do, what to answer, and how to handle the situation. When we finally reach an agreement and we bring Azhar, Omar and Zargar to the plane to proceed with the exchange, its [sic] not the hijackers, it is the ISI guys who, as it were, on their own account, come to check their identities [sic]’.137 They initially demanded US$200 million, the dead body of an Afghan terrorist, Sajjad Afghani, and the release of 36 Kashmiri militants from Indian jails. At the insistence of the Taliban, the terrorists dropped the demand for Afghani’s dead body and the US$200 million ransom money. Indian negotiators, including the Intelligence Bureau chief, chief of RAW, and a secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) along with the external affairs minister and NSA, claimed credit for delivering three dreaded terrorists, in place of 36 terrorists as demanded, to the hijackers. All the hijackers were subsequently found to be Pakistanis and members of Harkat-ul Ansar. Masood Azhar had been in Indian jail since 1994. After his release, Azhar was lionized in Pakistan. Encouraged by the ISI, he set up a new militant group by the name of Jaish-e-Mohammad for jihad in Kashmir. With the ISI officers by his side, Azhar toured the country, giving rousing speeches and preaching during Friday prayers at army mosques about the need for jihad.138 In 2001, Azhar’s JeM carried out an attack on the Indian Parliament while Omar Sheikh

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funded US$100,000 to the leader of the 9/11 attackers, Mohammad Atta, and kidnapped and killed The Wall Street Journals’s American journalist Daniel Pearl.139 The surrender of India in front of a handful of terrorists encouraged the jihadi forces to orchestrate many such diabolical plots in the future. Three years later, in December 2003, when American forces dethroned the Taliban and arrested key Taliban officials, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) allowed the interrogation of Afghan Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, a small player in the IC-814 outrage. US officials were profoundly disinclined to grant access to the arrested high-profile Afghan politician. The revelations of Mutawakil were startling as he confessed that Mohammad Akhtar Usmani, the designated successor to Taliban chief Mullah Omar, who was then commander of its forces in Kandahar, was the central conduit between the ISI and the HuA members who carried out the hijacking on its behalf. Mutawakil also revealed that Usmani had handed over the IC-814 hijackers and the prisoners released by India to ISI personnel who were already stationed in Kandahar.140 India’s old habit of surrendering to the treachery and trickery of Pakistan continues. Since 1989, 55 terrorists have been either released in exchange for hostages or given ‘safe passages’.141 Frustrated with the consistent surrendering policy of successive governments, former NSA J.N. Dixit mooted a no-negotiation plan in 2005. The government decided to adopt a bold and tough hijacking policy. Under the new plan, the government could shoot down a commercial aircraft if it is turned into a ‘missile’ by hijackers. The policy also rules out any negotiations with hijackers on their demands. These new guidelines were dictated by a policy doctrine, which states that any attempt to hijack an aircraft will be considered an act of aggression against the country and will thus prompt a response fit for an aggressor. But as a practice, India had never been able to get tough with the terrorists and its numerous compromises with terrorists exposed the country’s vulnerability to terrorism. On 1 October 2001, a massive car bomb rocked the Kashmir assembly building, and killed 34 people excluding the four terrorists who carried out the attack. On that day at 1.58 p.m., a Tata Sumo with the registration number JK0IC 1342 sped towards the Jammu and Kashmir assembly complex and screeched to a halt at the heavily guarded gate. Three men in police uniform emerged from the vehicle

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and ran into the building, firing aimlessly in all directions. Behind them, the Sumo along with the driver went up in flames as the sound of the bomb deafened the assembly building. Immediately, the security agencies established the fact that the attack was carried out by the JeM.142 Indian intelligence agencies briefed an emergency cabinet meeting about the link between the JeM and Osama bin Laden’s alQaeda.143 However, they missed the broad picture. After the release of Masood Azhar from Indian jail on 31 December 1999, the ISI started projecting Azhar’s JeM as the front organization in Kashmir. It was earlier supporting Harkat-ul Ansar, where Azhar was the general secretary before his release by India.144 With every kind of support percolating into JeM, the organization started planning deadly attacks, one after the other, in India.145 When terrorists attacked the Srinagar assembly building, the US was entangled with its own war against terrorism in Afghanistan. Reacting to the Srinagar Assembly bombing, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage said, the US ‘do one problem at a time’.146 The bombing of the Kashmir assembly building thus initially drew only a proforma condemnation and message of sympathy from the state department.147 Indian forces responded by firing artillery across the LoC in Kashmir in an apparent effort to signal to Washington as well as to Islamabad that India viewed the attack in Srinagar as a serious provocation. Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes told journalists that the firing was a punitive response to militant infiltrations from the Pakistani side.148 Indian leaders were bitter that Pakistan had become a primary beneficiary of the Bush administration’s ‘war on terror’, despite having been the Taliban’s strongest backer before the 11 September attacks on US soil, and in spite of Pakistani support for cross-border infiltration resulting in terrorist attacks against India. The problem aggravated when US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on 15 October that Kashmir was ‘a central issue’ between India and Pakistan, immediately before he flew to New Delhi. Secretary Powell assured Indian officials during his visit to New Delhi that America’s campaign against terrorism was not confined to Afghanistan and al-Qaeda.149 But Powell was mainly keeping India from retaliating against Pakistan for escalating violence in Kashmir.150 Even after the attack on the Kashmir Assembly building by the JeM and the LeT, these terrorist organizations had not been added to the State Department’s foreign terrorist organization list until October 2001.

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Blaming Pakistan for the 1 October attack, Prime Minister Vajpayee hinted in a letter to President George W. Bush that India would be forced to take matters into its own hands if Washington could not convince Islamabad to rein in terrorist groups based there.151 Indian officials demanded that Washington designate JeM a terrorist organization, and publicly weighed punitive attacks on militant camps on the Pakistani side of the LoC in Kashmir.152 American officials in Islamabad were so immersed in the US military campaign in Afghanistan and in efforts to secure Pakistan’s help against the remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban that they did not focus on the 1 October attack on the Kashmir Assembly building nor could they see it as the precursor to a major crisis. More worrisome was the fact that like the Americans, India’s political leadership also viewed the assembly car bombing as one of many acts of terrorism in Kashmir during a particularly violent period. After the attack on the J&K assembly building, India warned Pakistan, apprised the US and got a patient hearing from the UK.153 However, at the military and political level, the issue was not dealt with adequately. This led to an attack on the Indian Parliament by the same terror organizations on 13 December 2001.154 Of course, it would be obvious to draw a link between the parliament attack and another similar operation that took place just six weeks prior at the J&K legislative assembly in Srinagar by the same organizations. Investigation in the case led to the arrest of a lecturer in a local Delhi college, whose interrogation further led to the identification of two other accomplices, Mohd Afzal Guru and Shaukat Hussain Guru. Interrogation of the accused persons revealed that Afzal Guru was the main coordinator, who was assigned this task by a Pakistani national, Gazi Baba of JeM. Afzal received his training from a camp run by the ISI at Muzaffarabad in PoK.155 The trial of the parliament attack commenced in February 2002 and a year after the attack, on 16 December 2002, a special Prevention of Terrorists and Disruptive Activities Act (POTA) court convicted three of the four accused in the parliament attack conspiracy. The evidence produced by the prosecutor did not withstand judicial scrutiny and on 29 October 2003 the Delhi High Court, while acquitting two accused on account of lack of evidence, rejected the plea to reconsider the death sentences of Shaukat Hussein Guru and Afzal Guru. On 4 August 2005, the Supreme Court converted Shaukat’s death sentence into a 10-year rigorous imprisonment, and rejected the appeal for

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Afzal Guru. After this, on 26 September 2006, a warrant of execution of Afzal’s death penalty was issued by Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Kaur, who ordered that the convict be hanged until death at 6 a.m. in Tihar jail on 20 October 2006, five years after the parliament attack.156 Bureaucratic and political considerations cost India four years to get a mere opinion of the Delhi government on Afzal Guru’s mercy plea, which he placed before the president of India. The city government sent the file on the mercy petition only after it received the 16th reminder from the federal home ministry supporting the death sentence, but remarked that the implications of law and order should be closely examined while carrying out the execution. In other words, the Congress-led Delhi government deliberately wanted to delay the execution of Afzal Guru as the Congress party thought that the terrorist was linked with the sentiment of Kashmiri Muslims. The party was not in favour of hurting the Muslim voters, whom they considered as their loyal supporters during elections. On 9 February 2013, Afzal Guru was secretly hanged in Tihar jail and buried in the jail’s graveyard. Two days later, JKLF chief Yasin Mallik, who was in Islamabad, staged a protest against the hanging of Guru at which LeT chief Hafiz Saeed was also present. India refused to act against Mallik for his connivance with Saeed. Such is the commitment of India to fight terrorism. The attack on the Indian Parliament created huge public uproar and on 18 December 2001, India launched ‘Operation Parakram’, mobilizing 500,000 troops along the LoC and international border. ‘Operation Parakram’ was the largest activation of Indian forces since the 1971 Bangladesh war. Although uncertainty still surrounds the actual objectives of this operation, after the attack on the heart of its government, ‘something concrete needed to be done to show people at home and in the international community that India meant business’.157 Through most of 2001 and 2002, the Indian army stood eyeballto-eyeball against the Pakistani security forces across the border, but India’s objective was unclear. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh tried to inform the cabinet committee on security about the purpose of Operation Parakram. Preparing for a brief to the committee, on a scrap of paper, Jaswant Singh wrote that the aim of Operation Parakram was ‘to defeat cross-border infiltration/terrorism without conflict; to contain the national mood of “teach Pak a lesson”; and in the event of war, to destroy and degrade Pakistan’s war fighting

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capabilities’.158 This was certainly not a clear war strategy. Independent observers explained the reason behind Operation Parakram as ‘waging a possibly full-scale war to support India’s offensive action in J&K and occupy territory in PoK, thereby inhibiting infiltration’.159 Wajahat Habibullah wrote in his My Kashmir, ‘The Indian political leadership failed to give clear written directives to the armed forces on what they were expected to achieve. War was avoided, but the situation was further confused’.160 At a gathering in a university in Delhi, Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs Arun Jaitley explained the virtue of troops’ mobilization but could not clarify why this was done.161 Problems with India’s military doctrine and a lack of clarity within the Union Cabinet and on its war objectives may have undermined Operation Parakram at the very outset.162 India’s army began to mobilize in January 2002; Pakistan responded in kind. In a research paper from Merton College, University of Oxford, Walter C. Ladwig III claimed that India’s reliance on its military doctrine resulted in the failure of Operation Parakram.163 For this operation, the Indian army followed the ‘Sundarrajan Doctrine’.164 Under Sundarrajan’s strategy, the international border was protected by seven defensive ‘holding corps’, which consisted of infantry divisions for static defence, mobile mechanized divisions that could respond to enemy penetrations and a small number of armoured units.165 Although possessing limited offensive power, as their name implied, the primary role of the holding corps during a war was to check enemy advances by manning the extensive defensive obstacles constructed in the border region. Sundarrajan concentrated the army’s offensive power into three mobile armoured columns that were capable of striking deep into Pakistan. Each ‘strike corps’ was built around an armoured division with mechanized infantry and extensive artillery support. In a war, after the holding corps halted a Pakistani attack, the strike corps would counter-attack from their bases in central India (I Corps in Mathura, II Corps in Ambala and XXI Corps in Bhopal) and penetrate deep into Pakistani territory to destroy the Pakistan army’s own two strike corps (known as Army Reserve North and Army Reserve South) through ‘deep sledgehammer blows’ in a high-intensity battle of attrition.166 The strike corps would operate under the protection of the Indian air force, which would be expected to first gain air superiority over Pakistan and then provide close air support to ground operations.

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In February 2004, Gen. S. Padmanabhan explained why the military doctrine did not work in 2002. He became the 20th Chief of Army Staff on 30 September 2000. He was an alumnus of the prestigious Rashtriya Indian Military College, Dehradun, and National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla. After his training he was commissioned into the Regiment of Artillery and held several significant postings. He earned a reputation as a tough, aggressive commander in Kashmir and his famous line during the Indo-Pak border rift was ‘If we go to war, jolly good!’ Unfortunately, for India, the decisiveness of its message was undercut by the inability of the Indian army to present a timely threat to Pakistan. The armoured columns of the strike corps took nearly three weeks to make their way to the international border area after the mobilization order was given. In this intervening period, the Pakistan army was able to counter-mobilize on the border, and more importantly, major powers became increasingly concerned by the extent of India’s military mobilization and counselled New Delhi to exercise restraint.167 Gen. Padmanabhan, while responding to criticism that slow mobilization of the troops ‘gifted’ Pakistan time to prepare its defences — and eventually meant that the operation had to be called off — said, ‘significant military gains could have been achieved in January 2002, had politicians made the decision to go to war’. These objectives could have included ‘degradation of the other force, and perhaps the capture of disputed territory in Jammu and Kashmir. They were more achievable in January, less achievable in February, and even less achievable in March. By then, the balance of forces had gradually changed’.168 Journalist Praveen Swami argued for airstrikes rather than army mobilization in the first place, as ‘air strikes against terror training camps could have been carried out within days of the December 13 outrage’.169 Gen. Padmanabhan discounted the limited strike option. He said, ‘If you really want to punish someone for something very terrible he has done you smash him. You destroy his weapons and capture his territory. War is a serious business and you don’t go just like that. When December 13 happened, my strike formations were at peace locations. At that point, I did not have the capability to mobilize large forces to go across’.170 As time passed, Pakistan created nuclear paranoia and stated that the country ‘may not hesitate to use nuclear weapons in case India attacks Pakistan’.171 US Secretary of State Colin Powell was on the telephone with Gen. Musharraf almost every day, urging him to take steps to

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rein in the jihadis. On 30 December 2001, President George W. Bush got involved, telling Musharraf to take additional strong and decisive measures to eliminate the extremists who sought to harm India. The New York Times journalist David E. Sanger wrote, ‘Colin Powell remembers scrambling to organize allies so that some foreign minister or world leader was visiting both New Delhi and Islamabad just about every week to talk both the Indian and Pakistani leadership down from their thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons.’ He quoted Powell saying, ‘We had sort of a duty roster out there for who is going tomorrow to keep these clowns from killing each other’.172 International pressure, especially that of the US, worked and Gen. Musharraf agreed to take action against the extremist forces in Pakistan. The world watched with bated breath when Gen. Musharraf addressed the nation on 12 January 2002. He did a U-turn on terrorism saying, ‘Pakistan rejects and condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used for any terrorist activity anywhere in the world. No organization will be allowed to indulge in terrorism in the name of Kashmir.’ However, he reiterated the perennial chant that ‘Kashmir runs in our blood’ and Pakistan would never surrender its claim on Kashmir.173 Musharraf’s clarification on Kashmir was an indication of his future policy where he would most probably not restrain Kashmir-centric militants from waging war against India. On 25 September 2002, while Indian troops were still at the border, the Akshardham Temple, a famous temple in Ahmedabad, was stormed by terrorists who killed 34 people. The attack was a joint JeM–ISI operation and the plot was hatched in Saudi Arabia. It exposed the fallacy of the government’s claim that troop deployment had achieved its objective of ending Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attacks against India. On 30 June 2006, four years after the attack, a designated POTA court in Gujarat convicted three of the six arrested to death. Another accused was sentenced to a life term in prison, while two others were awarded punishment of 10 and five years each. Those convicted in the case had challenged the POTA court’s judgement at the Gujarat High Court. The case is still going on in a long and unending spiral of court hearings. Finally, on 16 October 2002, the 10-month-long mobilization on the Indo-Pak border ended. For the politicians who had ordered the mobilization, including Prime Minister Vajpayee, Defence Minister George Fernandes, and National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra,

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‘Operation Parakram’ was a successful exercise in coercive diplomacy, as it pressured Washington and Islamabad to take action against Islamic militant groups based in Pakistan.174 But it remains unclear just why the politicians who ordered the build-up finally chose not to use the military machine they had assembled. General Padmanabhan said, ‘Everyone seems to feel that the US held us back. Perhaps they did; perhaps they didn’t. I don’t know anything specific on this. I do know that that there was great consternation on the other side, Pakistan, because of the huge Indian build-up. Finally, it was a decision that had to be made by our political masters’.175 The parliament attack proved the fact that one preventable terrorist attack from Pakistan-sponsored terrorists against India was fraught with the possibility of bringing the two countries to a nuclear war. This hypothesis was again put to the test when Mumbai was attacked on 26 November 2008. The trend of bringing nations to war after a terrorist strike was started by the US, which got into a prolonged war in Afghanistan after the terrible 9/11 attacks.176 Inordinate delays in delivering justice by the Indian courts, coupled with the prosecution’s failure to prove the guilt of the terrorists, has been sending a message across the world that there is no strong deterrent against terrorists in India. For the militants, one successful and unpunished attack inspires a series of future such strikes. Nevertheless, of all the Indian cities, Mumbai has borne the maximum brunt of terror attacks. The four major terror attacks on Mumbai since 1993 — including the 12 March 1993 serial blasts, the 25 August 2003 Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar blasts, the 11 July 2006 serial blasts, and the 26 November 2008 attacks — have claimed 652 lives. From March 1993 until July 2011, the city alone has been the target of 14 terror strikes of various intensity, which have killed 686 people and injured a whopping 2,383.177 These numerous terror attacks have made a serious dent on the confidence of Indian citizens, who feel insecure and impatient because of the lacklustre response of the government.178 Added to this is the problem Pakistan has been facing with terrorists. The country has carried the dubious distinction of supporting terrorists and terrorist organizations but for a decade, Pakistan itself has been reeling under terrorist attacks. An inherent tussle between the civilian government and the military has made the former weak and helpless, while the latter is busy promoting India-centric terror groups. Expressing his

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helplessness, former Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz said: ‘For every ten militants who are trained here to fight in Kashmir, one goes and the rest stay in Pakistan and cause trouble’.179 A collapse of Pakistan — into internal anarchy or an Islamist revolution — would cripple the global campaign against Islamic terrorism. When US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates visited Islamabad in January 2010, he conveyed India’s concern that another Mumbai-like attack might lead to strong measures from New Delhi. The Pakistani prime minister informed him that ‘Pakistan is itself facing Mumbai-like attacks almost every other day and when we cannot protect our own citizens, how can we guarantee that there wouldn’t be any more terrorist hits in India’.180

Introduction Ø

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2 The LeT: From Regional to Global Œ

T

he Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), with the active and comprehensive support of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), orchestrated the Mumbai attacks.1 It is important to know about the functioning of the LeT before delving into the details of the Mumbai conspiracy. The organization’s origin, evolution, strength and its relationship with governmental organizations has been widely discussed and debated by various governments, world media and academia. However, mystery still surrounds the history of the organization, its present functioning and its humanitarian as well as horrific operations.2 There are many academic works on this subject, mostly by Western scholars, where disagreement persists on almost every subject about the organization.3 For the purpose of this chapter, I have tried to rely as much as possible on authentic news reporting, government reports, court materials and authenticated personal interviews. Using these sources, I have tried to dissect the LeT by way of cross-checking available information and by using conventional knowledge to arrive at a conclusion. I have not taken the service of anonymous sources for the simple reason that those sources would certainly reduce the credibility of the study. The LeT, with its multiple attacks on India in general and the Mumbai attacks in particular, brought India to its knees.4 Normally terror organizations expire after a decade-long lifespan at most, but the LeT is thriving even after 25 years.5 The LeT’s recruitment process, support base, penetration in Pakistani society, ideology, and operations in and out of Pakistan has dwarfed the functioning of all other terrorist organizations in the country. It has evolved from an obscure entity in the late 1980s to the most powerful and dangerous terrorist organization of the world today.6 The LeT leadership understands the fact that since it is neither the first nor the only client of the ISI, its significance in the eyes of the intelligence agency is relative to its strength and capability.7 In its long history of existence, the LeT

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has never targeted the Pakistani state or any target (international or otherwise) within Pakistan.8 An inquiry into why and when, by whom and for what purpose the Markaz Dawa-ul-Irshad (MDI), the parent body of the LeT, was established, can be divided into two sections. The first section deals with the early days of the LeT, primarily in Afghanistan, and its growth in Pakistan; and the second section with the LeT’s patronization by the ISI and the emergence and development of the LeT as the prime proxy force of Pakistan against India. The names MDI and LeT are used interchangeably for the understanding of the readers. The origin and initial functioning of the LeT took place under normal circumstances. The only exception was that international Islamic jihadists had aided in the emergence of the organization. The ISI had no direct influence on the LeT during its origin and early days.9 During the Afghan war, Pakistan was virtually converted into an outpost for the recruitment of mujahideen and as a gateway to participate in the Afghan struggle.10 People of all hues, mostly madrassa products, left Pakistan to join their brethren in Afghanistan. The future leaders of the MDI also left Pakistan on various occasions. There is no verifiable source available to pinpoint the exact date of their departure or their activities in Afghanistan. Indian journalist Praveen Swami, in an article, claimed that Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi left Pakistan in 1982 and was a student of the Jamia Mohammadia seminary in Gujranwala.11 However, India’s home ministry record and Interpol records do not agree with this assertion and Pakistani court materials contend that Lakhvi did not have any formal education.12 It is known that he left for Afghanistan in his 20s and joined as a mujahid to fight against Soviet troops. Since the ISI was funding only seven Afghan groups and volunteers had to register themselves under one or the other banner, between August 1987 and January 1990, Lakhvi oversaw mujahideen operations at the Kabul frontline and kept up communication with both Arab and local mujahideen units based in nearby Nurestan.13 The seven groups were Hezb-iIslami (Party of Islam) led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; Jamiat-i-Islami (Islamic Society) led by Burhanuddin Rabbani; Itehad Islami (Islamic Unity) led by Abdul Rasul Sayaf; Hizb-i-Islami (Party of Islam) led by Maulavi Younas Khalis; Mahaz-i-Milli Islam (National Islamic Front of Afghanistan) led by Pir Sayed Ahmad Gilani; Jabha-i-Nijat-Milli (Afghan National Liberation Front) led by Sibghatullah Mojaddedi; and Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami (Islamic Revolutionary Forces) led by

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clergyman Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi. Lakhvi was son of a cleric linked to the neoconservative Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith. His significance in the shadowy world of jihad zoomed due to a marriage between his sister and Abu Abdur Rehman Sareehi, a well-off Saudi who was considered to be a trusted lieutenant of Osama bin Laden. Sareehi is believed to have contributed a hefty amount of `10 million for the construction of the Muridke headquarters of the LeT in 1988. It is unclear when Hafiz Saeed and Zafar Iqbal, the other two founders of the MDI, reached Afghanistan. However, US government records say that both Saeed and Iqbal were professors at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore in 1986 when they founded the MDI.14 Hafiz Saeed joined the University in 1974 and resigned in 2005.15 This is an indication of the fact that the duo used to spend time together between Lahore and Afghanistan during the mid-1980s, when the MDI came into being. The LeT website states that, ‘During the Afghan Jihad the youth of a rather battered Muslim Ummah took part to please Allah. In 1986 Markaz-al-Dawa-Wal-Irshad was established to organize the Pakistanis participating in Afghan Jihad, on one platform’.16 Consequentially, a group of Pakistani Muslim militants decided to ‘take a leaf from the book of the Afghans and lit the torch of jihad movement’.17 This new movement, which eventually became known as the LeT, comprised both intellectuals and military commanders. There are conflicting accounts on the origin of the MDI, as the information available about this group is mostly contradictory. Some sources, quoting MDI websites, are of the view that it had 17 original founders. However, there is no mention of names other than Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, and Zafar Iqbal. Some names related to Hafiz Saeed’s family are found as founding members but it is not possible on the part of Saeed to have had a son, sons-in-law and other offshoots to staff the MDI when he himself was only 35 years old in 1986.18 The MDI or the LeT was one of the many small and obscure organizations which came into existence during the Afghan War with the explicit intention to oppose Soviet Russia in Afghanistan. During the Afghan War, the ISI never considered the LeT as one of the serious players and the group did not receive any direct cooperation from the intelligence agency. The LeT claims that some 1,600 of its trainees participated in the Afghan War but only five were martyred.19 Most of the LeT’s cadres, including Lakhvi, were fighting under Abdur Rab Rasul Sayyaf’s Ittehad-e-Islami, which was recognized by the

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ISI and received funding, arms and guidance from it.20 During the Afghan war, the LeT and its cadres were mostly foot soldiers who contributed to the efforts of the seven ISI-recognized mujahideen groups in Afghanistan. The meeting of the three key figures of the group in Afghanistan proved productive for the formation of the MDI. Saeed, who obtained his masters in Arabic language from the Jamia Malik Saud (King Saud University) in Riyadh, managed to convince his former colleagues back in Saudi Arabia for funding. Iqbal provided the much-needed ideological support while Lakhvi looked into the military affairs of the organization. Scores of Pakistani mujahideen were taking part in the Afghan war against the Soviet Union without any proper Pakistani leadership. The ISI was also not inclined to fund any Pakistani militant organizations at the outset, as the ISI leadership had made it clear to the mujahideen that ‘to receive the ISI largesse, groups or individuals have to align themselves with any of the seven ISI recognized Afghan parties’.21 But the ISI, which was acting as the bank window of the CIA, was not the only sponsor of the Afghan war. Under an agreement between the Saudi royal family and President Ronald Reagan, Saudi Arabia agreed to match the CIA’s aid dollar for dollar.22 Apart from Saudi Arabia and the CIA, many wealthy private individuals from Saudi Arabia were also funding the myriad groups of mujahideen involved in the Afghan war.23 Although the LeT was at a nascent stage and not powerful enough to claim official funding and support from the ISI, the organization was eligible for private Saudi funding to run its daily affairs. In 1987, the LeT established two training camps in Afghanistan. The first one was the Muaskar-e-Taiba at Jaji in Paktia Province and the second one was the Muaskar-e-Aqsa in Kunar Province. During this time, their third training camp, known as the Camp Tango training facility, was established in Kunar province of Afghanistan. Soon, according to later accounts published by the LeT, the volunteers who were trained at Camp Tango under the supervision of Lakhvi and Saeed were fighting at different fronts.24 The formal establishment of the MDI occurred in 1986 and after that, efforts were commenced by the eager supporters of the organization to establish a parallel military wing. Accounts vary on the year of formation of the LeT, the military arm of the MDI. Some sources say it was formed in 1990, but this does not stand up to academic scrutiny as by this time the organization was already in possession of three military camps in Afghanistan. Also, during the

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Afghan war, preaching was not possible in a war-ravaged Afghanistan and the assertion of many scholars about the MDI that it was basically a preaching organization is not convincing. The MDI had been functioning as a militant organization since its inception and Saeed received funding and guidance from Abdullah Azzam, the mentor of Osama bin Laden, for its establishment.25 Dr Abdullah Azzam, who was affiliated with the Islamic University of Islamabad and the Maktab-al Khidamat, helped organize the MDI. Saeed formally established the LeT in 1989, but it was only a change of nomenclature, as the fate of the MDI was closely associated with the LeT before 1989.26 In 1988, Abu Sareehi (bin Laden’s lieutenant) founded an organization in the Kunar Valley of Afghanistan, which recruited Afghan and Pakistani youths in the Bajaur agency on the Pak–Afghan border, to fight the Russian occupation forces in Afghanistan. The organization flourished in the Kunar Valley and in the Bajaur tribal agency, as hundreds of youths from Pakistan belonging to the Salafi school of thought instantly joined the organization, besides hundreds of Afghans. Lakhvi was one of the main trainers at the Kunar camp of the anti-Soviet militants, and became the chief operational commander of the LeT upon its formal launch by the Pakistani military establishment in 1991. It was essentially the outbreak of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir that prompted the Pakistani establishment to bring the huge Sareehi network of Wahabi militants under its patronage and make Kashmir their new battleground. The illusory success of jihad in Afghanistan encouraged each of the actors involved in the war to believe that the same could be replicated successfully elsewhere.27 After returning from the successful Afghanistan operation, the LeT consolidated its position for a couple of years in Pakistan before registering its presence at the Indian side of Kashmir. The ISI and the LeT separately wanted to replicate their Afghan successes in Kashmir, immediately after the departure of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The ISI quickly backed the JKLF for the Kashmir insurgency before shifting support to the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Ansar, Harkat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami and others.28 However, after a few years of experiment, it started sending combat-hardened aliens into India in order to sustain a large-scale campaign of murder and mayhem intended to bring New Delhi to its knees.29 The earliest contact of the ISI with the LeT was not before 1993, as the LeT registered its

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presence in Kashmir during this time. Until mid-1993, the ISI was focusing primarily on indigenous disgruntled groups in Kashmir to create unrest in the state. Benazir Bhutto provided some explanation on the ISI’s support to the LeT. She recalled that, ‘Musharraf told me he wanted to “unleash the forces of fundamentalism” to ramp up the war’ against India in Kashmir. Bhutto gives Musharraf the go-ahead, as she had lost power once before by opposing the Pakistani military and the ISI, and, as she recollected, ‘Second time around I did not want to rock the boat’. Musharraf approached several Islamic organizations and committed them to supply volunteers who could be trained to fight as guerrillas in Kashmir. One group he worked with was the MDI. The earliest LeT presence in India was detected in 1993 when a cohort of the group’s Punjabi cadres crossed the LoC into Jammu and Kashmir. Its presence was publicly recognized by early 1996 — a full six years after the local Kashmiri resistance burst forth — when a group of LeT terrorists massacred 16 Hindus at Barshalla, about 30 kms from Doda, in Kashmir. The ISI did not support the LeT between the period of 1989 to 1993. However, the LeT was eager to receive support from the ISI, and the organization independently participated in the Kashmir insurgency. Explaining his aim in 1999 Saeed said, ‘About 15 years ago, people might have found it ridiculous if someone had told them about the disintegration of the USSR. Today, I announce the break-up of India, Insha-Allah. We will not rest until the whole India is dissolved into Pakistan [sic]’.30 Since 1993, hundreds of terrorist attacks involving LeT militants have occurred throughout India.31 The first spectacular attack of the LeT in Kashmir was recorded in 1999 when its cadre attacked a Border Security Force post in Kashmir. The guerrilla group’s daring attack on 23 December 2000 on New Delhi’s historic Red Fort — a landmark that houses both soldiers and civilians and draws thousands of tourists every day — brought the group to the limelight in South Asia.32 The 13 December 2001 terrorist attack on India’s Parliament while it was in session and the July 2006 Mumbai local train bombings were among the most devastating strikes carried out by the LeT. The parliament attack was a joint exercise of the LeT and the JeM.33 However, the LeT’s most outrageous and ghastly attack to date would have to be the 26 November 2008 Mumbai attacks. Since the Mumbai attacks, the LeT’s global image as a hardened terrorist organization has been enhanced significantly.

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The LeT: Political, Economic and Social Role The unprecedented domestic evolution of the LeT in Pakistan, as compared to other militant organizations, since its inception in 1986 has surprised many observers. The delicate combination of Khairaat (Charity), Falah-w-Bahbood (welfare), Dawa (call for preaching and propagation) and jihad (holy war), as adopted by the LeT has never been adopted by any other organization around the world.34 Although radical Palestinian groups such as Hamas and Lebanese groups like Hezbollah also took up a humanitarian agenda in order to penetrate the masses, they are on a different sphere.35 Their distinctness stem from the fact that although both organizations were declared as terrorist groups by the US, European Union and many other countries, they possess paramilitary groups and share power with the government. Both the groups contest in the local and national elections and participate in governing their respective countries. While the humanitarian activities of the LeT allow the organization to work openly in civic society, its connection with the ISI and the Pakistani army protect its militant wing from any state prosecution.36 Its large charity arm is popular in Punjab and PoK, along with other parts of Pakistan, where it runs schools, ambulance services, mobile clinics and blood banks. A crumbling economy and a weak government in Pakistan have not been able to provide these services and hence the prestige of the LeT is growing in the eyes of common Pakistanis. On 26 December 2001, the US Department of State declared the LeT a terrorist organization. Pakistan banned the LeT as well and declared it a terrorist organization on 12 January 2002.37 When the US declared the LeT a terrorist organization, the MDI reorganized itself by changing its name to the Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), claiming it to be a religious, educational and humanitarian organization. This was done to draw a distinction between its charitable and educational work and the LeT’s militant activities, in an effort by MDI leaders to shield their fund raising and other activities from sanctions. The adoption of the new name JuD was meant to provide a cover for the LeT’s militant activities in Pakistan. Saeed publicly resigned from the LeT, telling the media that he had assumed the leadership of JuD. But the LeT and the JuD share many senior leaders; the LeT still falls under the authority of Saeed, and the JuD supports and facilitates the LeT’s violent activities. The LeT transferred most of its assets and personnel to the newly formed JuD. A US government report concluded that the ‘JuD relies heavily on private

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donations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), madrassas, and businesses spread throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Some of the money to finance LeT operations is obtained by fraudulently redirecting donations intended for humanitarian work’.38 Islamabad ‘watchlisted’ the JuD in 2003, but the government has resisted pressure to take action against the group, particularly after the JuD’s popular earthquake relief efforts in 2005 and 2006 in response to the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. LeT members identified themselves as JuD when in Pakistan and as LeT when in Kashmir.39 The LeT’s image in the eyes of Pakistanis was raised significantly after the two devastating natural calamities that struck Pakistan in 2005 and in 2009–10. On 8 October 2005, a devastating earthquake of 7.6 magnitude on the Richter scale shook PoK. The government’s relief either never reached the affected or the corrupt administration soaked up most of the aid.40 The LeT earned tremendous goodwill in PoK for providing humanitarian assistance at the time. Paul Watson, a reporter with the Los Angeles Times, filed a report from Saloona village in which he stated that for the first six hours after the earthquake struck, villagers were trying desperately to rescue those who were trapped in the debris. The first rescue team to arrive on the scene was not from the Pakistan administration, but a group of 15 militants from a nearby training camp hidden in the forests above Saloona. The militants reportedly brought their own medics, who provided emergency treatment to the injured. They rescued several villagers and also dug graves for those who had perished in the earthquake.41 The LeT also brought in a mobile surgical unit staffed by ‘long-bearded doctors from Karachi and Lahore — very impressive young men, fluent in English and unlike the Taliban, the LeT draw some very talented people from urban professions’.42 As part of its earthquake relief work, the LeT ferried supplies to remote villages isolated on the far side of the churning Neelum River, one of the two snow-fed canyon rivers that traverse the area. According to one account, the LeT ran a network in Muzaffarabad of some 350 of its jihadis members connected with wireless phones; 16 ambulances and mobile X-ray machines/operation theatres; kitchens to feed 3,000 people daily; motorboats to rescue people from inaccessible areas and an orthopaedic unit under the supervision of Dr Amir Aziz.43 The elder son of Lt Col. (retd) Aziz Ahmed Khan, Dr Amir Aziz was arrested on 21 October 2002 from his Lahore residence by the ISI. Dr Amir Aziz’s father’s rank and association with the Pakistan army is significant

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because it indicates how the LeT and al-Qaeda has penetration inside the army. The charges brought against the doctor revolved around his close association with some al-Qaeda leaders, a few of whom he had treated after the Allied Forces attacked Afghanistan. Dr Aziz has acknowledged in an interview with the Associated Press that he met bin Laden after the 2001 attacks and that the al-Qaeda leader was in good shape at the time. Dr Aziz was acquitted by the Lahore High Court of Pakistan on 19 November 2002.44 The JuD camps were the first stop for the hundreds of villagers straggling in after walking for days in the rugged terrain of the earthquake-stricken Neelum Valley. Azad Kashmir’s Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat met JuD chief Hafiz Saeed at the PM House in Muzaffarabad and thanked him on behalf of the Azad Kashmir government. The same day, Azad Kashmir President Lt. Gen (retd) Sardar Mohammad Anwer Khan visited the JuD’s highly efficient medical camps in Muzaffarabad.45 The charity activities of the LeT withstood a Pakistani crackdown even after the 11 September attacks. The bank account of Idara Khidmat-e-Khalaq (IKK or Humanities Services Institution), a charity organization, which became the main conduit for the LeT’s fund collections especially from the UK and US after the earthquake, remained unmolested. IKK’s relief and rehabilitation work after the quake firmly established the LeT’s presence in the area and its popularity as a charity organization across the country.46 During an interview in 2005, Hafiz Saeed told Ayesha Jalal that the humanitarian assistance his men were providing to those affected by the earthquake was not jihad and that the results ‘could not compare with the benefits of military Jihad’ that he and his men were waging in Afghanistan and Kashmir.47 The humanitarian wing of the LeT worked alongside the Pakistani military to help civilians displaced during the army’s campaign to retake the Swat Valley from the Taliban. The penetration of the LeT into Pakistani society over the years has been so deep that almost every shop in the main bazaar of every Pakistani town, large or small, has an LeT collection box to raise funds for the struggle in Kashmir.48 The JuD is even recognized by the Pakistani government. The Punjab provincial government provided 82.77 million Pakistani rupees to the JuD during the fiscal year for 2009–10.49 The LeT also earned a good name in Pakistan, when in 2009–10, monsoon floods submerged large parts of the country. The LeT was running the relief work in the flood-affected area under the alias of Falah-e-Insaniyat. The US Department of State observed that, ‘social

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services provided by NGO extremist organizations, such as the JuD, challenge the legitimacy of the Pakistan government to provide for its people. This includes relief efforts in the Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps of the Northwest Frontier Provinces by the new LeT/ JuD charity Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation’.50 As public anger rose over the government’s slow and chaotic response to Pakistan’s worst flooding in 80 years, hard-line Islamic charities stepped in to bridge the gap at the grass-roots level with an efficiency that earned them new support among Pakistan’s beleaguered masses. Mian Adil, the vice-chairman of Falah-e-Insaniyat, distributed relief supplies at a centre in Nowshera with a message ‘not to trust the government and its Western allies’.51 Through relief work, the LeT was able to win hearts and minds in a region of the country that was threatened by Islamic militancy and a Taliban takeover. Across the deluged northwest, locals complained that the government was all but absent. At the JuD aid ‘camp’ on the main road east out of Charsadda, huge pots, used to cook on an industrial scale, were lined up, and the cooked food distributed to the needy. An ambulance, no longer needed to ferry the injured, was loaded with bundles of second-hand clothing to distribute. The JuD also ran a first-aid clinic in a building belonging to a college in Charsadda.52 The Falah-e-Insaniyat built homeless shelters, provided hot meals, medical treatment and clothes to flood victims. The popular support of the group could easily be understood from the fact that when the police tried to dismantle their operation, using an ordinance that prohibited public gatherings without a permit, the victims protested and pleaded with the police not to shut down a humanitarian service that the government was not providing.53 The group operated under the name of Falah-e-Insaniyat but made little effort to disguise that it was actually the JuD. The uniform vests worn by many of the 2,000 volunteers bore the badges of both the JuD and Falah-e-Insaniyat.54 The charity of the JuD is so popular that former President Gen. Musharraf publicly acknowledged the JuD as ‘one of the best performers in the relief during the earthquake and flood’.55 On 24 November 2010, the US added Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation as an alias of the LeT. The Department of the Treasury also designated LeT senior leader and head of the Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, Hafiz Abdur Rauf, Mian Abdullah, the head of the LeT’s Traders’ Department, and Mohmmad Naushad Alam Khan, a key financial facilitator for the LeT, as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.56

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The LeT functions as a prototype of a government in Pakistan. Its headquarters in Muridke hosts many facilities, which include but are not restricted to a huge mosque, a garment factory, an iron foundry, a furniture factory, playing/sports facilities, markets and residential blocks for the trainees/students.57 The LeT has spread its tentacles across Pakistan, which helps the organization to recruit, indoctrinate and train fresh cadres for different purposes including terrorist activities. While the institutions run by the LeT act as the base for the functioning of the organization, they are also instrumental in reaching out to the ordinary citizens of Pakistan. The charity work of the JuD made it ‘an openly working secret organization’ in Pakistan. Considering the huge numbers of schools and Islamic institutions the LeT operate, hardly any region of Pakistan is untouched from the sphere of its influence. But the most vital areas where the LeT has a larger presence are Punjab, Sindh and PoK. Recent Indian government reports noted that the LeT is operating training camps in the FATA region as well. Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sheikhpura, Bahawalpur, Sahiwal, Okara, and Rahim Yar Khan are some of the towns from where the LeT recruits a large number of jihadi fighters.58 The LeT’s founders, professors Hafiz Saeed and Zafar Iqbal, were teaching at the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore until 2006 and 2004 respectively with impeccable immunity.59 Despite the LeT’s spectacular attacks in India the two professors have never been prosecuted. It is evident that university facilities are still being used by the LeT to spread their idea and get volunteers for their activities.60 The residential complexes of the LeT built for its cadres and students in different cities provide all facilities to its inhabitants. Poor and illiterate young Pakistani students, often attracted by the facilities provided by the LeT, are lured to join the organization. Secret US cables assert the fact that ‘young Punjabi men turn up as fighters recruited from areas of southern Punjab where poverty, illiteracy and despair create a breeding ground for extremism’ (emphasis author).61 In fact, many poor Pakistanis consider the LeT as one of the service providers of Pakistan. Once lured to their centres, the LeT commanders exploit young people and train them for jihad against India. The profile of the cadres of the LeT is similar to that of Ahl-eHadith followers, shopkeepers and Saudi Arabia-returned migrants who embraced the Salafi form of Islam and of petty officers of the Pakistani army. Joining the LeT is also a safety valve for surplus manpower of Pakistan, which gives young boys who cannot afford

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to migrate to the West or to the Gulf and are socially frustrated a substitute identity and compensates for their frustration.62 The militants engaged in the LeT also receive a monthly salary and fringe benefits, which are quite attractive for young unemployed boys. Being a martyr is, in addition, an opportunity for lower-class boys to become famous and be remembered for their military actions. The LeT understand well the benefit of news media and to ensure the advertisement of its activities in Pakistani society, the organization run as many as six weekly and monthly journals and a couple of websites.63 Although it has never displayed any political ambition, from time to time the organization invariably projects its political weight.64 Around half a million people attend its annual congregation, which it uses to expand its network by propagating its success stories in Kashmir; by linking up with extremist groups operating in other parts of the world, as representatives from such groups are routinely invited; and, last but not least, by sending a message to the government about its growing size and strength.65 The activities conducted by the JuD touch almost the entire spectrum of the socio-economic strata in Pakistan.

The LeT’s International Ambitions From the very beginning, the LeT has been operating in international theatres, as its emergence is traced to Afghanistan and its later activities have taken place mostly in India. After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, the organization did not divest its training camps in the country and immediately started another trans-national operation against India.66 There are several references and information about LeT militants’ wars in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Iraq. The group built global recruitment and financing networks. The New York Times carried an article about an unnamed LeT commander, who was first trained for a year by the LeT at a camp in Kunar Province, in Afghanistan, in the early 1990s and then became skilled at firing Russian-made rocket-propelled grenades. The unnamed commander was sent to fight and train others, in Kashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Over the years, he worked with different militant groups, and he estimated that he personally trained up to 4,000 fighters.67 There are media reports, which suggest that LeT units ‘participated in the civil war in Tajikistan, which ran from 1992 to 1997. They also fought in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a 1993 interview to the MDI magazine

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al-Dawa, LeT commander Abu Abdul Aziz — also known as Abdul Rehman al-Dosari — argued that the Bosnia campaign provided an opportunity for Islam to enter Europe through jihad’.68 Another LeT cadre, Abdul Razzak Massod, a commerce student from Nizambad, Pakistan, was also operating in international theatres. Massod was recruited into the LeT in 1998 and after a few years of activities in Afghanistan, he travelled to Iraq and Ilam in Iran in 2003, hoping to run LeT operations there.69 The LeT’s endeavour to trap Pakistanis with British passports has been well documented. For example, Saeed visited Britain in 1995, preaching to his listeners to undergo a several-week-long training course in Afghanistan.70 Another operative, Shafik-ur-Rehman, a Muslim of Pakistani descent, served as the imam in Oldham’s Ross Street Mosque (in Greater Manchester) since 1993 and was considered the representative of the MDI in Britain. An MI5 investigation had claimed to have uncovered evidence that Rehman was collecting cash to be sent to the LeT guerrilla force back in Pakistan. MI5 arrested and presented him before a Special Immigrations Appeal Commission in London. In its judgement in September 1999, the Special Immigrations Appeal Commission rejected Home Secretary Jack Straw’s reasons for ordering Rehman’s deportation.71 The case reached the House of Lords and dragged on for four years. Then suddenly on 30 October 2002, the Home Office dropped deportation proceedings against him. He was allowed to remain in Britain for at least three years and immediately after the order his lawyers sought permanent residence for him. The Home Office said the case had been dropped because he had severed his links with Islamic terrorist groups and was no longer regarded as a threat to national security. Since the 1990s, with an aim to stretch its frontier of activities, the LeT started a permanent international wing and Sajid Mir, also known as Sajid Majid, was entrusted with the task of managing the ‘foreign affairs’ of the LeT. Mir was working as the personal assistant to Abdur Rehman Makki, son of the maternal uncle of Hafiz Saeed. As per an Indian intelligence report, Mir is an international planner and trainer who was involved in the planning of the Mumbai terror attacks.72 His activities are documented by security agencies and by the media. Mir has visited several countries including Qatar, UAE, Canada, and India using multiple passports. He was arrested in Dubai once and got out using his ‘LeT connections’. He had direct access to Zaki-ur-Rehman and ties to al-Qaeda in neighbouring Afghanistan.73

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Increased funding from wealthy overseas Muslims and a growing admiration for the organization encouraged its leaders to broaden the LeT’s goal and activities. The LeT’s military operations budget is 365 million Pakistani rupees (approximately US$5.2 million) per year (emphasis author).74 The decade after the year 2000 was particularly favourable for the group. After 2000, support for the LeT started pouring from every circle imaginable. Foreign funding increased and the LeT’s credibility in the eyes of the ISI was fairly established. Its cadres performed spectacular attacks in Kashmir with a stunning rate of success. These acts of the LeT allowed the organization to acquire a global ambition. Pakistani Urdu daily The Jang reported that the 1998 annual congregation of the LeT drew participants from 50 countries. The LeT believes that jihad in Kashmir marked just one part of a worldwide contestation between Islam and kafirs. Battered by the assault from the West after the 11 September attacks, al-Qaeda and the Taliban were under pressure. But the LeT, with its deep sources of patronage within Pakistan, turned its camps into factories, feeding the global jihad. It is easier to join the LeT than al-Qaeda, as the organization is operating openly from storefront offices across Pakistan. The LeT has been attracting Westerners with its slick propaganda in English and some foreign LeT trainees went on to join al-Qaeda; several alQaeda led plots against New York and London.75 Clarity emerged on the LeT’s international ambition after the year 2000 as its activities in the Western world were highlighted by various security agencies. In early 2002, the LeT was caught buying military equipment through its British operative Abu Khalid. Khalid told his interrogators that he worked with three of the Virginia (US) militants who helped the Briton buy an unmanned airborne vehicle. The Virginia militants were prepared by a cleric, Ali al-Timimi, who set up a group to answer Taliban chief Mullah Omar’s call to defend Afghanistan against US invasion. Virginia militants Randall Todd Royer and Ibrahim Ahmed al-Hamdi, trained at LeT camps in 2000, began to recruit volunteers on al-Timimi’s instructions. Apart from these two, four other militants from the same place had travelled to Pakistan to receive training from LeT camps.76 The training camps they attended teemed with more than 3,000 trainees and although Pakistanis dominated the ranks, there were Americans, Arabs, Australians, Azeris, Britons, Chechens, Filipinos, Kurds, Singaporeans, Turks, and Uzbek citizens in the camp as well. In 2003, the FBI busted the LeT cell in Virginia and arrested all the 12 jihadis.77

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In 2001, Willie Brigitte, a French mariner of Afro-Caribbean origin, was recruited into the LeT fold. Brigitte was part of an al-Qaeda connected group of militants in Europe, which was involved in numerous plots. He moved to Pakistan in 2001 following the 11 September attacks and began training at a base run by the al-Qaeda-backed LeT camp while awaiting instructions to attack the West.78 The LeT sent Brigitte to Australia in May 2003 to join Faheem Lodhi, a Pakistaniborn architect and militant. With Lodhi’s help, Brigitte settled into a new life in Sydney by quickly marrying a former Australian army intelligence officer who had converted to Islam. Brigitte collected maps and photos of targets taken by his new wife. The duo planned to bomb a military base or a nuclear plant when French agents, who were hunting Brigitte as part of a larger investigation, foiled their plot. Trial court judge Whealy J. found material that included a CD-Rom which was a virtual library containing exhortations to violent jihad, justifications for suicide bombings (called “martyrdom” in the text of the material), and which extolled the virtues of those who had given their lives to the murder of innocent civilians and others in the name of extremist Islam. In addition to this CD, there were two volumes of the Lion of Allah, other material and Chechnyan video cassettes glorifying those who had given their lives in the fight between Chechnya and Russia’.79 Australian police deported Brigitte to France in October 2003 and captured Lodhi. The international ambition of the LeT was reflected in the Australian Supreme Court’s judgement, which said ‘the military and religious training that occurred in the LeT camp is related not only to the local situation but was intended to aid in the battle against oppression of Muslim communities elsewhere’.80 Brigitte was tried in a French court and sentenced to a 30-year imprisonment. In his testimony, he admitted that ‘during the training he met Arab people from Gulf countries, two British men and two Americans at the LeT camp’. The French court convicted Sajid Mir in absentia for his involvement with Brigitte. The LeT is also involved in fighting against the American troops in Iraq. Dilshad Ahmad, a long-time LeT operative from the Bahawalpur area of Pakistan’s Punjab province, was the LeT’s operational lead for its campaign of violence in India between 1997 and 2001. In 1998, Ahmad addressed a major LeT conference in the group’s headquarters at Muridke, arguing for the need to extend the organization’s activities outside Kashmir. A July 2004 editorial in the LeT’s weekly

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Urdu publication Ghazwa said, ‘The Americans are dishonoring our mothers and sisters. Therefore, jihad against America has now become mandatory. We (LeT) should send our mujahideen to Iraq to fight with the Iraqi mujahideen’.81 Ahmad’s arrest by the British troops in Basra, Iraq in March 2004 testify to the LeT’s participation in Iraq’s struggle. Dhiren Bharot, another LeT terrorist, was held in London in 2005 along with six other men while spreading the LeT’s international agenda. However, the most important international attack plan of the LeT was started in 2005, which turned out to be the Mumbai attacks of 2008. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on a visit to Islamabad on 24 July 2010 that the LeT had become ‘a very dangerous organization and a significant regional and global threat’,82 a statement that no doubt rankled his Pakistani hosts. Alarmed by the international ambition of the LeT, the CIA deputed a number of its agents, including Raymond Davis to focus exclusively on intelligence gathering on the LeT. However, the Pakistani police caught Davis during the month of January 2011 after his shooting of two Pakistanis on the streets of Lahore. American intelligence officials are convinced that the LeT is no longer satisfied being the shadowy foot soldiers in Pakistan’s simmering border conflict with India. Its goals have broadened and the LeT is committed to a campaign of jihad against the US and Europe, and against American troops in Afghanistan.83

The LeT and the Pakistan Army/ISI There is enough literature on the LeT and ISI connection. However, most of the literature is post-dated, as no literature exists pre-2000 documenting an LeT-ISI connection. Contemporary literature cites either anonymous sources or taking inference from the same sources while describing LeT–ISI contact. There is even a lack of unanimity amongst scholars on the actual year of commission of the MDI and the LeT.84 The confusion is understandable as most authors indicate the existence of a thin thread between the MDI and the LeT. They tried to give an explanation on how these two were started on different dates. Methodological study and chronological calculation prove the fact that the LeT and JuD stem from the same original organization Markazud-Dawa-wal-Irshad that was founded around 1986 and for which LeT served as its armed, militant wing since the beginning. The US intelligence agencies believe that the MDI was started in 1986 and the LeT was a simultaneous military offshoot of the MDI.85 As of November

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2011, Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior Affairs banned 31 militant organizations including the LeT; however, the Ministry in its release said that the LeT’s precursor the MDI was founded in the late 1980s.86 India’s Ministry of Home Affairs believes that the MDI was founded in 1989.87 Having settled on the issue of the MDI and the LeT’s origin, it is significant to look into the group’s relationship with the ISI and the Pakistani army. A majority of academic authors and journalists have written that the LeT was created by the ISI. A detailed explanation is already given that the LeT was formed in the trenches of Afghanistan and there was no link with the ISI, whatsoever, during their Afghanistan struggle. There is no formal documentation on the issue as to when exactly the ISI or the Pakistan army started supporting the LeT. However, there is circumstantial evidence and authentic analysis, which indicates that the formal alliance of the Pakistan army and the ISI with the LeT started in or around 1993. Pakistan’s ‘strategic depth’ policy in Afghanistan has already been discussed in the preceeding chapter. In continuation of the ‘strategic depth’ policy, the Pakistan army and the ISI has been creating, nurturing, sheltering and using terrorist organizations for a long time. This is well documented by authors of eminence and by intelligence officers.88 In this background, our inquiry into the ISI’s relation with the LeT is both challenging and interesting. While establishing the relations between the ISI and the LeT, authors have comprehensively taken the service of anonymous sources, to substantiate their argument. However, anonymity of the sources invariably plant doubts in the mind of the readers. Such claims, which are based on anonymous sources, especially look dubious when future events unfold in a manner contrary to the description of the author. On most occasions, court materials remove the veil of anonymity, as dispensation of justice is not possible by relying on anonymous claims. In July 2011, the New York Times relying on an anonymous source claimed that, ‘The entire training enterprise of LeT was supported by the Pakistani military and LeT fighters are paid by a wing of the ISI, which is an integral part of the army. Fighters were paid about $50 a month and commanders about $500’.89 India’s foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, was candid in 2009 when he said, ‘Pakistan army paid wages to Lashkar-e-Taiba and sustained the organization’.90 A number of authors have documented the ISI’s shifting support from JKLF to other battle hardened Pakistani militant groups in or around 1993.91 Between 1989 and 1992, the ISI or other senior army staff could not point to much success in Kashmir and the Pakistani military wanted

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a new army of proxies to revitalize the flagging guerrilla campaign and replenish the cadres that the Indian military had decimated.92 However, the most damning and telling evidence of the ISI and the LeT’s marriage in 1993 was supplied by the illustrious former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. In an interview on 20 May 2000, Bhutto revealed that the ISI had undertaken a new Kashmir policy and as per the new strategy, ‘the leadership of All Parties Hurriyat Conference was effectively replaced with Harkat-ul Mujahideen and Lashker-e-Taiba’.93 In her autobiography, she narrates that in 1993 she was invited to the General Headquarters to get a security briefing and Pervez Musharraf, then director general of military operations, gave the briefing in the presence of the army chief. Bhutto was told by Musharraf, ‘how Pakistan would take Srinagar if only I gave the orders’.94 In her autobiography, Bhutto denies giving such permission but authors Andrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark contended that during the year 1993 she consented to Musharraf’s proposal (to send LeT militants to Kashmir) to avoid confrontation with the military and the ISI and also to avoid a military coup.95 Since 1993 onwards, the ISI wanted to launch a more assertive strategy in Jammu and Kashmir for which the LeT became one of the vehicles for ISI control of the insurgency. The new strategy has tied down large numbers of Indian troops in Kashmir, who otherwise man the LoC.96 The LeT acted as the shock troops of Pakistani intelligence as they did not want to send in Pakistani army forces. Since the mid-1990s, the ISI favoured the LeT over all other terrorist organizations operating in Kashmir and outside. The common Punjabi ethnic background of the LeT and the Pakistan army, the apolitical nature of the LeT and its commitment to orchestrate hardened terrorist operations brought the two groups closer.97 The collaborative efforts of LeT-ISI produced some of the most horrific attacks against India.98 The Mumbai attack of 2008, as we will analyze in subsequent chapters, proved to be the best example of an ISI–LeT operation. Since the Mumbai attacks, scores of reports around the world provide the smallest details of LeT activities and its collaboration with the ISI. A US secret cable on February 2009 was frank in its observation wherein the US Ambassador Anne Patterson in Islamabad categorically wrote, ‘we need to lay down a clear marker that Pakistan’s Army/ISI must stop overt or tacit support for militant proxies (Haqqani network, Commander Nazir, Lashkar-e-Taiba)’.99 Willie Brigitte confessed before a French court that several instructors at the LeT camp told him that they were Pakistani army officers

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on special assignment.100 The arrest of Abu Anas on 10 August 2006 by the Delhi police provided concrete evidence about the active collusion in between the army, the ISI and the LeT. Anas confessed that there were regular meeting between Zaki-ur-Rehman and Major Wajahad, Brigadier Riaz and Brigadier Haji of the Pakistani army.101 The US administration sent one of its deputy directors of the CIA in the summer of 2008 to Pakistan to confront the ISI officials with communication intercepts indicating that the ISI was complicit in the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul. The attack in Kabul, carried out by the LeT, was coordinated by the S-Wing of the ISI.102 David Coleman Headley, about whom we will know more in the proceeding chapters, told his Indian interrogators in a Chicago jail that the chief of the LeT, Hafiz Saeed, was very close to the ISI and every major action of the LeT was done in close coordination with the ISI.103 Headley also confessed that ‘Lakhvi is close to the DG of ISI and the LeT is also funded by the ISI’. The LeT’s relationship with the army is so close that the Pakistan military is compensating the families of the terrorists who were killed in the Mumbai attacks.104 However, despite this proximity, the relationship between the ISI and the LeT is not transparent. On 26 December 2008, ISI chief Lt Gen. Shuja Pasha was summoned to the CIA Headquarters in Langley to explain the role of the ISI in the Mumbai attacks. Pasha admitted that the planners of the Mumbai attacks — at least two retired Pakistani army officers — had ISI links.105 The LeT receives almost all kinds of assistance from the shadowy S-Wing of the ISI, which includes operational funding, specialized weapons, sophisticated communications equipment, combat training, safe havens, intelligence on targets, campaign guidance and cover fire when crossing the border into India.106 Unlike other militant groups, the LeT has never shown any inclination to capture political power in Pakistan. This has allowed the LeT to remain focused on the twin objectives of: (a) protecting its own existence by masquerading the group’s activities as humanitarian; and, (b) advancing the ISI’s India-centric agenda. The LeT’s excellent understanding and shared goal with the ISI-army has enabled the organization to increase its size, influence and firepower in Pakistan.

The LeT and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan The ISI support to the LeT is well documented and we know how the LeT spread in Pakistani society as well. Now it is significant to analyze how the LeT fits in to the militant fraternity of Pakistan. How

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is the organization different, if at all, from other terrorist groups? How can it be compared with another most powerful terrorist group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan? The LeT’s jihadi network is the largest, most efficient and most deadly in nature as compared to other jihadi groups in Pakistan. The group possesses greater independence than other militant organizations as the LeT adheres to the Ahe-e-Hadith school of Islamic jurisprudence with a Wahabi orientation and does not have to follow any of the four Muslim religious imams.107 The followers of Ahe-eHadith, which literally means ‘the people of Hadith’, do not subscribe to taqlid or ‘imitation’. Hence, they do not follow the decisions of a religious authority without necessarily examining the Quranic basis or reasoning of that decision.108 The followers of Ahe-e-Hadith are also called Salafis. Salafis follow the Salaf or the pious predecessors — the first three generations of Muslims after Prophet Mohammad — whose understanding of the texts and tenets of Islam they consider the best form of Islamic practice.109 They are also known as Wahhabis.110 Some sources mention that Ahe-e-Hadith constitutes 4 per cent and Deobandis 20 percent in Pakistan. While the LeT with its Ahe-e-Hadith adherence need not follow any imam, other fundamentalist organizations like the Tehrik-eTaliban Pakistan, the HuA, the HuM and JeM are Deobandis and follow the imams.111 The disassociation of the LeT from the preaching of imams gives them the elbow room to operate on their own and establish their own Islamic system or law in conformity with the Salafi tradition. The LeT’s link with other major militant organizations was guided or influenced by the state policy of Pakistan. The Pakistan government’s decision to join the US war on terror created huge uproar inside Pakistan. Publicly, the ISI and the army were opposing and acting against terrorism but privately they were encouraging terrorist groups to attack American and Indian interests.112 Because of the ambivalent position of Pakistan, especially its support of America’s war on terror, almost all militants groups were enraged. Militant organizations like the TTP, JeM, HuJI, HuM, HM, Sepahe-Sahiba Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, al-Qaeda, and Al Badr have turned their guns on the governmental establishment, consulates of foreign governments, Shia groups, Ahmedia Mosques, and minority communities. However, the LeT never went against the state policy of Pakistan and remained loyal to the ISI. There was an internal chasm and heated debate inside the LeT about the organization’s response

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to Pakistan’s support of the US war on terrorism. But the leadership successfully quelled the internal uprising and maintained its status as a loyal ally of the ISI.113 Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri of al-Qaeda even urged Pakistanis to overthrow their government, denounce President Pervez Musharraf as a traitor and ‘call on Muslims in Pakistan to get rid of their government which is working for Americans’.114 The TTP and JeM militants even attempted the assassination of President Musharraf twice within a span of 20 days in 2003–04.115 The Musharraf regime’s attempt to rein in terrorist organizations and the Lal Masjid operation of July 2007 made the matter worse. The Lal Masjid operation turned virtually every militant group against Musharraf but public opinion in Pakistan remained divided. On 11 July 2007, Dr al-Zawahiri issued a videotape calling for Pakistanis to join jihad in revenge for the attack by Pakistan’s army on the Lal Masjid.116 Addressing the nation Musharraf said, ‘Unfortunately we have been up against our own people. They had strayed from the right path and become susceptible to terrorism. What do we as a nation want? What kind of Islam do these people represent? In the garb of Islamic teaching, they have been training for terrorism. They prepared the madrassas as fortresses for war and housed other terrorists in there. I will not allow any madrassa to be used for extremism’.117 However, not impressed with the message and threat of Musharraf and sending a clear message of defiance to the ISI, the militants orchestrated two daring suicide attacks on military and intelligence targets in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on 4 September 2007. The bombers conducted near simultaneous attacks at the Royal Artillery Bazaar and on a bus carrying ISI personnel, which killed 25.118 While the LeT and TTP are at two ends of the jihadi stream, JeM is in the middle, veering towards the TTP end. The TTP has a more internationalist, pan-Islamic agenda loosely guided by al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.119 JeM, a fellow Punjabi militant organization, never challenged the prominence of the LeT; in fact its leader Maulana Masood Azhar shared a desk and training sessions with the LeT chief Hafiz Saeed. The terror attack on the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001 was a joint effort by the LeT and JeM. The HuJI militant Ilyas Kashmiri, who later formed his own 313 brigade and joined al-Qaeda, considered himself an international fighter and at times collaborated with LeT cadres, as in the case of David Coleman Headley.120 The LeT’s relationship with the HM is cordial and the LeT encouraged Syed Salahuddin, the leader of HuM, to fight in Kashmir.121 The SSP,

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LeJ, HuM and Al Badr never got on well with the LeT but there is less conflict amongst them now. Amongst the militant groups, the TTP has emerged as the most dreaded of the organizations after al-Qaeda and the LeT. The LeT is facing tough competition from the TTP as both the organizations draw cadres from almost the same talent pool — Salafi jihadists in Pakistan and outside. The TTP is considered as a force multiplier for al-Qaeda, which opposes America and wants to topple the government in Islamabad. The TTP and al-Qaeda have a symbiotic relationship. The TTP draws ideological guidance from al-Qaeda, while al-Qaeda relies on the TTP for a safe haven in the Pashtun areas along the Afghan– Pakistan border.122 The TTP cadres are the militant product of Pakistani madrassas and a close cousin of the Afghan Taliban. Typically, the TTP cadres are battle hardened, less disciplined, under almost no command and control, committed to the cause of Islam and well connected and open to the resources of al-Qaeda. The shared goal of al-Qaeda and the TTP and the latter’s willingness to operate on the behest of the former enabled both of them to use each other’s terrorist network and operational experience. The TTP’s goals include toppling the government of Pakistan by waging a campaign of terrorism against the civilian leaders and military. Its formation began in 2002 and in 2004 the organization successfully established its sway in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) before the group officially formed under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud in 2007. During early 2009, Mullah Omar dispatched a six-member team to Waziristan to urge the Pakistani Taliban leaders to settle their internal differences, scale down their activities in Pakistan and help counter the planned increase of American forces in Afghanistan.123 Within a short span of time, the TTP has outshined the LeT’s impressive terror record and challenged the group’s prominence in Pakistan. Militant organizations developed schisms amongst themselves on the issue of Pakistan’s decision to join the US war on terrorism. There was a perceived consensus amongst the militant organizations to oppose the Pakistani government on this. But because of its friendly relations with the ISI and army, the LeT was less inclined to oppose the government. The LeT’s proximity with the ISI enabled the organ-ization to function with total immunity. The collaboration was so strong that on 17 November 2006, the Ministry of Defence Parliamentary Secretary declared that ‘he was proud to be a member of LeT and

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that he seeks to extend support to jihadi organizations when they seek his “cooperation”’.124 The support extended to the LeT from the government of Pakistan is horizontal. It has already been discussed how Gen. Musharraf pushed the LeT into the Kashmir arena and how the ISI has been supporting the group. Added to this, the civilian leaders are also sympathetic to the LeT. On 2 January 2009, President Asif Ali Zardari expressed his increasing frustration with Shahbaz Sharif’s government in the Punjab, whom he believed had tipped off the JuD about the assets freeze ordered by the federal government.125 The LeT’s policy attracted the ire of other terrorist organizations, which subsequently led to the souring of its relations with other militant organizations including al-Qaeda. In fact, al-Qaeda and other Pakistani terrorist organizations accused the LeT of being a stooge at the hands of the ISI.

The LeT and al-Qaeda Before the arrest of Headley, the debate about the LeT and al-Qaeda link was a matter of assertion, observation and was open to academic scrutiny. Despite some glaring examples of LeT–al-Qaeda links, experts, especially from Pakistan, refused to accept their mutual connection. They argued that al-Qaeda operatives were not only arrested from LeT safe houses but also from the safe houses of Jamat-e-Islami in Pakistan and that LeT infrastructure in Afghanistan was separate from that of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Their argument was further supported by al-Qaeda’s criticism of the LeT for the latter’s refusal to join al-Qaeda’s call against Pakistan’s decision to join the US war on terrorism. Although the actual degree to which the LeT was allied to al-Qaeda remains an important empirical question, there is some degree of cooperation between the two groups. The most glaring connection surfaced with the arrest of Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana (whom we will know more about in the next chapter) in the US. There is an umbilical connection between the LeT and al-Qaeda. Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, candidly admitted in 2005 that the LeT had been ‘backed by Saudi money and protected by Pakistani intelligence services’.126 Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden were among the guiding personalities behind the formation of the LeT.127 The relationship between the LeT and al Qaida began in the mid-1990s. When the Clinton administration launched cruise missile attacks in 1998 on Taliban controlled Afghanistan, several

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of the missiles inadvertently hit LeT training camps.128 In November 1998, the LeT organized a religious gathering of 50,000 youths near Lahore, at which participants chanted slogans in support of bin Laden and vowed to avenge the US attack on his camps. Pakistani officials estimated the three-day gathering cost organizers about US$1 million. It was suspected that part of the funding came from bin Laden.129 The LeT–al-Qaeda relations grew closer following the attacks of 11 September 2001, and the subsequent American crackdown on al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In the wake of the attacks, the LeT is said to have dispatched several of its armed volunteers to Afghanistan, to supplement the 600 LeT special guards who had earlier been specially appointed as personal security for Osama bin Laden.130 The crossfertilization and collaboration of the two groups was evident from the fact that top al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was arrested on 28 March 2002 from an LeT safe house in Faisalabad in Pakistan.131 Since then, many of the global terror campaigns of al-Qaeda have had an LeT footprint as well. Another glaring detail, which was missed by the media and analysts, is the fact that along with Abu Zubaydah another al-Qaeda operative, Abdullah Hussaini, was arrested in Faisalabad. Hussaini represented 55 Brigade on the Bagram front lines. The 55th Arab Brigade served as Osama bin Laden’s primary battle formation supporting Taliban objectives, with bin Laden participating closely in the command and control of the brigade. Nashwan Abd alRazzaq Abd al-Baqi had primary operational command of the brigade, serving as bin Laden’s military commander in the field.132 Hussaini was arrested and deported to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation. He told his American interrogators that he escaped from Afghanistan with a group of other al Qaida operatives under his command via Birmal and Zormat, Afghanistan, and Bannu and Lahore, Pakistan, to Faisalabad with the assistance of the LeT network of facilitators. According to Hussaini, the safe houses, transportation, and security for these moves was provided by LeT operatives.133 Materials seized by the FBI from Tahawwur Rana’s custody included inflammatory CDs prepared by al-Qaeda. Headley and Rana were working in close collaboration with al-Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri.134 Following its proscription by the US and Pakistan in 2001 and 2002 respectively, the LeT opened new camps in Pakistan’s Waziristan and Mohmand Agency, often co-located with al-Qaeda facilities. As in the cases of the Australian attack plan and the Virginia jihadists, the al-Qaeda volunteers often trained at LeT camps in the

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region. The ‘LeT has made it clear that it is willing to undertake bold, mass-casualty operations with a target set that would please al-Qaida planners’.135

Triangular Relations: The LeT, Other Militant Organizations and the Pakistan Army/ISI In April 1989, Lt. Gen. Hameed Gul, the head of the ISI, was triumphant about the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. At an official gathering during the same month, Pakistani journalist Ahmad Rashid asked Lt. Gen. Gul ‘if he was not playing with fire by inviting Muslim radicals from Islamic countries, who were ostensibly allies of Pakistan. Would these radicals not create dissension in their own countries, endangering Pakistan’s foreign policy?’ Lt. Gen. Gul replied, ‘we are fighting a jihad and this is the first Islamic international brigade in the modern era. The communists have their international brigades, the West has NATO, why can’t the Muslims unite and form a common front?’136 His explanation was a clear indication of the ISI’s patronage of militant organizations. Lt. Gen. Gul’s relationship with the LeT was no secret. Since 2003, he had been attending LeT annual gathering and addressing the LeT cadres to raise their morale.137 Immediately after the Mumbai attack, there was a report in The Washington Post that Pakistan had agreed to a 48-hour timetable set by India and the US to take action against the LeT and to arrest at least three Pakistanis, including Lt Gen. Hameed Gul, believed to be linked to the Mumbai attacks’.138 The ISI’s half a century policy of producing, promoting, nurturing and exporting Islamic extremists boomeranged as countless numbers of militant organizations turned against the government and swayed the country by inflicting regular bloodshed and terror. While terrorist organizations with international ambitions were bringing disrepute and international condemnation to Pakistan, the ISI’s policy of supporting militants was proving detrimental for the peace and prosperity of the country. Though Pakistan houses more than 50 terrorist groups, the state directly supports nearly a dozen such militant groups who are operating from different regions of the country. Strangely, these militant groups are creating havoc in Pakistan as well. On 22 May 2011, six militants broke into the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi and destroyed two P-3C Orien aircraft. The attack also raised concerns about the safety

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of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, which reportedly number more than 100, a mere 24 kms away from PNS Mehran.139 However, the ISI continues with its policy of supporting terrorist groups like the LeT and blaming India for every ill. This phenomenon has been fiercely debated amongst Pakistani intellectuals. Pakistani analyst Ayesha Jalal said, ‘Besieged by enemies within or without, television’s spin-doctors, impelled by the state’s intelligence agencies, attribute Pakistan’s multifaceted problems to the machinations of invisible external hands, as opposed to historically verifiable causes of internal decline and decay. If India’s hegemonic designs are not hindering Pakistan at every step, America and Israel are believed to be hatching plots to break up the world’s only Muslim nuclear state. Pakistan’s deeply divided and traumatised people are groping for a magical formula to evade collective responsibility for their failure to gel as a nation’.140 The state of Pakistan is presently very dicey. With the spectre of Talibanization radiating out of the FATA, Pakistanis are split on the merits of their strategic alliance with the US. In a discussion at the University of Peshawar on how to tackle the insurgency in FATA former ISI chief, General Asad Durrani, blurted out, ‘Leave all this discussion, let me ask the audience whether they want the Taliban to win or the US? Just raise your hand’.141 The conference ended in pandemonium. Pakistan, with over 171 million people, is the second largest Muslim state after Indonesia. But security in the country has been particularly bad since 2001. The Pakistani civilian leaders and military, although working in close collaboration with the US, do not trust US actions in entirety. The same feeling also rules the foreign policy of Washington.142 Pakistan suspects every US move as designed to weaken Pakistan for the benefit of a secret US alliance with India.143 The common perception about Pakistan is that it is considered the world’s largest assembly line producer of terrorists — a product of its compulsive uses of Islam as an instrument of domestic and foreign policy.144 Over the past six years or so an estimated 22,110 people have died in terrorist strikes, including at least 2,637 security personnel, 7,004 civilians and 5,960 terrorist insurgents.145 Although there is some realization of the situation amongst the top defence and interior ministry personnel, despite the dismal statistic, the ISI and the army are continuing with the policy of supporting terrorist groups.146 Pakistan houses a plethora of militant organizations, which are broadly divided into six segments.147 The militant groups presently operating in Pakistan come under the following headings:

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1. Globally-oriented Militants Al-Qaeda, the LeT and the TTP are the primary global terror groups in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda and the LeT’s global ambitions are well known and their terror acts are also manifestly covered in most part of the globe. However, there is disagreement on clubbing the TTP with them as a global terrorist organization. It is true that the TTP is entirely a domestic Pakistani terrorist organization with the ambition to implement Sharia in Pakistan; however, the group’s trans-national activities have recently surfaced.148 The TTP was explicitly Pakistan-oriented. But recently its trainees are fanning across the world, including the Times Square bomber Faizal Shahzad, to orchestrate terror attacks. The December 2011 attack on the Shia pilgrims of Kabul is a testimony that groups like the TTP and LeJ are desperate to go global.149

2. Afghanistan-oriented Militants Pakistan is home to a plethora of Afghanistan-oriented terror groups who are waging war against the NATO forces in Afghanistan. Since the US began its war on terrorism in Afghanistan, the Afghan groups crossed the border and opened their offices and operations in Pakistan. All the Afghan groups functioning from Pakistan, like the Quetta Shura, Quetta Regional Military Shura, Peshawar Regional Military Shura, Miramshah Regional Military Shura and Gerdi Jangal Regional Military Shura are considered Afghanistan-oriented groups.

3. India- and Kashmir-oriented Militants Groups like HM, HuM, HuA, LeT, JeM, HuJI, al Badr, Jamait-ulMujahideen (JuM), Al Umar Mujahideen (AuM), Dukhtareen-eMillat (DeM), Lashkar-e-Omar (LeO), Lashkar-e-Jabbar (LeJ) and Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen are basically committed to attacks in Kashmir and India.150

4. Sectarian-oriented Militants Amongst the sectarian groups, the most dreaded and lethal groups are the SSP, LeJ and Tehreek-e-Jaferia Pakistan (TJP). Other less diabolic groups with considerable impact include Sipah-e-Muhammad

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Pakistan (SMP), Jamaat-ul-Fuqra, Nadeem Commando, Popular Front for Armed Resistance, Muslim United Army and Harkat-ulMujahideen Al-Alami (HuMA).

5. Domestically-oriented Militants The TTP and Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) are the two main domestic-oriented militant groups, who never hesitate to target domestic places, people and government installations.

6. Nondescript Militant Groups Since the environment of Pakistan suits the flourishing of militant organizations,151 a good number of nondescript militant organizations have cropped up there. These groups do not claim the presence of a large number of cadres or followers to run their organizations. However, with a small number of committed volunteers, groups like Al Barq, Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen, Al Jehad, People’s League, Muslim Janbaz Force, and Mahaz-e-Azadi are creating a space for themselves in the militant league of Pakistan. Details about all of these militant groups’ activities is not the concern of this book but as it is evident, the categorization of militant groups is not a watertight affair and most of them have membership of more than one category.152 The mere fact that a number of terrorist organizations, as listed above, are allowed to function in Pakistan, shows that the security scenario of the country is explosive. By merely housing such myriad groups of desperate militants, Pakistan is sitting on a volcano. The Pakistan army’s policy on militant groups is opaque and nontransparent. Their track record in dealing with the militants is dubious and directionless.153 The ISI considers some groups like the LeT as strategic assets and others like the TTP with which the army is fighting as liabilities. The military has devised a policy wherein alQaeda operatives, especially foreign al-Qaeda operatives, who are in Pakistan, are captured and handed over to the US, while homegrown militants are sheltered even though such groups have been banned internationally as well as locally in Pakistan.154 The interior affairs ministry claimed that police departments and security forces are involved in a heroic and determined effort to combat militancy and terrorism in NWFP, FATA and the rest of the

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country. But the most wanted terrorist list published by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) carries the name of only one obscure terrorist from the LeT.155 There is no mention of the scores of LeT terrorists involved either in the Mumbai attacks or in other terrorist attacks in India.156 Nevertheless, Pakistan never tires of providing factual yet contradictory logic. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar informed the United Nations that ‘Very few countries have been ravaged by the monster of terrorism as brutally as Pakistan has’. She said, ‘30,000 innocent Pakistanis have been killed — men, women and children. Our troops have laid down 6,532 shuhada, or martyrs. We have seen 3,629 of our police and paramilitary personnel embrace shahadat, or martyrdom. Terrorists have attacked our military installations, attacked the grave sites of our spiritual elders, attacked our minorities and attacked the very idea of Pakistan’.157 The foreign minister asserted that, despite such sacrifices, Pakistan is on the right side of history and fighting terrorism. Aiding this assertion, Gen. Kayani said, ‘When the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union failed, how can it be expected of Pakistan (in Afghanistan)? We do not have a magic wand to succeed in doing what others have failed.’158 Gen. Kayani however admitted that as for links with terrorist groups, intelligence agencies world over maintained such contacts. He said, ‘That is where we get our information, the intelligence, from.’ Coming back to the three-sided relations amongst the LeT, other militants and the Pakistani army/ISI, the implications are far-reaching. The ISI’s endorsement of a select group of terrorist organizations over others is creating a rift amongst the different militant groups, which in turn results in terror strikes in Pakistan, India and other countries. The support of the ISI and the army for the LeT was so open that ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed attended the annual conference of the LeT held at Muridke from 13–15 April 2001. Pakistan’s nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan attended the same meeting as an honoured guest. Also accompanying Khan at the podium was Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, another Pakistani nuclear scientist who had met with bin Laden in 2000.159 Like his predecessors, Army Chief Gen. Pervez Asfaq Kayani has also been supporting the LeT and the ISI has been operating as a go-between amongst the militant organizations in Pakistan.160 Emboldened by the success of the Mumbai attacks and ISI–LeT collaboration, bin Laden personally ordered similar attack plots against multiple cities in Europe. Ahmed Siddiqui, who blew the plot, said,

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‘bin Laden used couriers to send a message to’ al-Qaeda’s ‘affiliates and partners’. He wanted them to emulate a ‘Mumbai-style attack’ in the UK, Germany and France. Pakistan and Eastern Afghanistan are increasingly becoming an unholy syndicate of terrorist groups working together like al-Qaeda, the Haqqani network, the TTP, the Afghan Taliban and groups like the LeT. A success for one is a success for all. Finally, the implications of the three-sided relations are threefold. First, the syndicate has been a threat to international as well as regional security; second, it has the potential to invoke war between the two nuclear neighbours — India and Pakistan; and third, it may threaten the very existence of Pakistan.

Introduction Ø

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3 Prelude to Mumbai Œ

The Mumbai attacks were not simple isolated attacks, which could

be developed and carried out overnight. They were not orchestrated by a new group, nor were the people involved with the crime obscure terrorists. When LeT terrorists stormed and attacked Mumbai, the terrorist organization had already completed 22 years of its bloody existence.1 The players involved with the strike, who came from different backgrounds, had various degrees of experience. For example, Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur Rehman had 22 or more years of experience in orchestrating terror plots.2 Other prominent LeT players, Zarar Shah, Sajid Majid, Muzmmil and Kahfa, all in their mid-30s, had 10 or more years of ‘full-time’ involvement with terrorist activities.3 Overseas plotters like David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana had been involved with LeT activities for at least six years.4 The LeT’s 10 foot soldiers, the fidayeen squad, who had participated in the Mumbai carnage, were all in their early 20s and had joined the organization a couple of years before the attacks.5 Finally, the army and ISI personnel of Pakistan, who guided the attack, belonged to the age group of 35 to 50, and were seasoned handlers of militant organizations.6 So the composition of the conspirators and attackers was robust. Join all the dots and the Mumbai plot would appear stranger than fiction, which would easily fit into a captivating Bollywood thriller.7 Trailing the preparation of the Mumbai attacks is a challenging and complex endeavour. The duration of the attack plan, which span over two years, was full of events — intricate, flimsy but true. For example, before 26 November 2008, the LeT tried to send attackers to Mumbai twice, but failed on both occasions. In September 2008, the boat carrying terrorists hit a rock in the sea and the attackers almost drowned before their handlers rescued them.8 The other failed attempt was on 7 November 2008, when an alarmed captain of an Indian boat refused to surrender to the LeT and fled.9 The plan

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to capture an Indian fishing trawler and sail to Mumbai was finally successfully carried out on 22 November 2008. The grand plan of the attack remained shrouded in mystery for the Indian investigators, even though they had captured one of the attackers and conveniently concluded that the attack was the handiwork of the LeT, which received support from the ISI.10 Surprisingly, the veil over the grand design of the Mumbai attack plan was removed after a few events, which occurred in 2009 not in India or Pakistan, but in distant America. The background information about the attack was collated after the arrest of a couple of persons in the US.11 However, it should be clarified here that the grand design of the attack was not ascertained only after a few events of 2009 in America, but those events successfully provided what was lacking in the indictment of the Mumbai attack case and hence the supplement of 2009 was vital. With this background, it is essential to take the readers through those connecting events that occurred after November 2008. The autumnal fog of 2009 blurred the vision of top Obama administration officials, who were inextricably busy with a series of militant and military related crises at home and abroad. Issues at stake were two-fold; first, to restrict the determined efforts of al-Qaeda and its affiliates to strike at the US homeland, and second, whether or not to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan. On the second issue, after prolonged deliberation, President Obama was persuaded to give orders to send 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan. This was one of the most defining decisions of his presidency, bringing the total American force to about 100,000 in a decade-old war that his own generals feared was getting away from the US.12 To address the nagging first issue, President Obama’s administration issued instructions to enhance security surveillance on the home front, which resulted in the interception of an al-Qaeda operative by the CIA, who was suppose to attack the US homeland.13 During the autumn of 2009, an al-Qaeda operative sent an email through an Internet address in Peshawar, which was under CIA surveillance. The vast computers controlled by American intelligence analysts were monitoring this address, linked to senior al-Qaeda operatives and dormant for months. Promptly, Langley in Virginia (CIA headquarters) relayed the message to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters and the FBI started its secret search ‘Operation High Rise’. The secret operation led to the arrest of Najibullah Zazi in Denver on 29 September 2009. Zazi, in that email,

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had asked an al-Qaeda facilitator about how to mix ingredients for a flour-based explosive. The 24-year-old Afghan-born Zazi had been living in Colorado and working undetected for al-Qaeda for a long time. He was planning to detonate up to 14 backpack bombs aboard the New York City subway cars.14 He had been trained in weapons and explosives in Pakistan and had made nine pages of handwritten notes on how to make and handle bombs.15 An innocent-looking youth, Zazi, through his proposed bombing, wanted to draw world attention to the killing of Afghan civilians by the US military. He had at first pleaded not guilty to the terrorism-conspiracy charges but on 22 February 2010, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and providing material support for a terrorist organization.16 He is now facing a life sentence in prison. Immediately after the arrest of Zazi, a second but far more impactful operation awaited the FBI. During this time, British intelligence, MI5, was tracking the trail of a notorious American citizen, who was in London after his Denmark visit. Through months of painstaking intelligence gathering, MI5 realized that Europe was in imminent danger on the behest of this shoddy American. In September 2009, MI5 tipped off the FBI about the man, whose name was David Coleman Headley.17 Curiously, Headley was no stranger to the FBI. During the late 1990s, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had employed Headley as an informant to provide inside information about the drug trade in Pakistan.18 Because of Headley’s earlier connection with the DEA, the FBI was also keeping an eye on him long before the Mumbai attacks. After the MI5 tip-off, the FBI launched ‘Operation Black Medallion’ during the month of September–October 2009 in Chicago. On 3 October 2009, the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI arrested Headley at O’Hare International Airport, Chicago, when he was about to board a flight to Philadelphia, intending to travel to Pakistan. The 49-year-old Chicago resident was arrested for plotting a terrorist attack in Europe.19 However, by the time he was arrested he had already carried out the Mumbai attack plan successfully. But his arrest was not because of his involvement in the Mumbai attacks, where he had played the role of linchpin. Headley’s arrest by the FBI was not only to protect Europe from an imminent bombing but also to secure New York from any such future attacks. Headley’s business partner Dr Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was arrested a few days later on 18 October 2009, ran an

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immigration and travel agency, which had an office in New York’s Empire State Building. That give Headley 24/7 access to the building, which was also possibly the most iconic terrorist target in Manhattan, and the FBI never discounted an attack plot to destroy the Empire State Building by Headley. So both the arrests were apparently meant for the protection of US homeland security and, as a by-product, to pre-empt any attack on Europe. Fourteen months after the Mumbai attacks, in February 2010, militants, who had successfully used the reconnaissance done by Headley and supported by Rana, again attacked India. In that month, a powerful bomb exploded at an eatery called the German Bakery in Pune. The eatery is situated near the Jewish Chabad House and Osho Ashram, both places frequented by foreigners. The duo found ways to dodge Indian law with the active support of the DEA.20 Curiously, Headley’s American chargesheet, which was quoted extensively in Indian media, mentions nothing about the Mumbai attacks. A subsequent chargesheet filed by the FBI collectively against four persons — Ilyas Kashmiri, Major Abdur Rehman Hashim, Headley and Tahawwur Rana — found some discussion about their role in the Mumbai attacks.21 The FBI chargesheet against Headley at the Northern District Court of Illinois is a document more concerned with US and European security than India’s. Headley was charged with ‘a conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the US and also to provide material support to that conspiracy’.22 The court charged him with, among other things, conducting extensive surveillance for facilitating attacks, working with an individual referred to as A,23 Ilyas Kashmiri and others. The FBI meticulously prepared the chargesheet, which provides unflinching details about the involvement of Headley in the impending attack on the facilities of Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten. The investigators intercepted a coded communication between Headley and Individual A and LeT Member A, which mentioned a plan called the ‘Mickey Mouse Project’ or ‘Northern Project’. The project was meant for attacks at Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, which in 2005 had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad, to which many Muslims took great offence. Headley’s arrest became a bone of contention between India and the US. The attitude of the US after the arrest created more distrust, although privately, amongst Indian official circles, than any

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bilateral bonhomie. Considering the prominent role of Headley in the Mumbai attacks, especially after his confession, the Indian public wanted the strongest indictment of the LeT, the ISI and the extradition of Headley to India. The Indian media fumed about the US action and reported extensively that the US could not have two yardsticks to treat terrorists. On one of the popular Indian TV news channels Times Now, US expert Christian Fair termed the Indian media reaction as ‘hyperbole’. A quick rejoinder came from the anchor, asking whether the US would have tolerated a denial of extradition by India if an Indian had been found involved in the 9/11 attacks?24 The Obama administration was worried as new intelligence in 2009 showed that some 100 Westerners, including many with US passports, were being trained as terrorists in Pakistani safe havens.25 Many of these people successfully ducked US intelligence to present a high level of threat to homeland security. So President Obama was solely devoted to US security, although the US invariably claims that it would cooperate with its partner and ally to prevent terrorist attacks. If there was any other region in the world that the US believed should be protected, it was Europe, not India.26 Obama expressed his concern about how individual bombers were posing a threat to US security. He said that the ‘metastasizing of al-Qaeda, where a range of loosely affiliated groups now have the capacity and the ambition to recruit and train for attacks that may not be on the scale of a 9/11, but obviously can still be extraordinarily . . . one man, one bomb, which could still have an extraordinary traumatizing effect on the homeland’.27 At the outset, as mentioned earlier, Headley and Rana’s arrests were unconnected with India. However, in an age of cross-fertilization of terrorists, it was challenging for the FBI to ignore India’s concerns for long. Headley’s trail left an indelible mark about his inextricable involvement in the Mumbai attacks. The undeniable imprint of Headley’s huge role in the Mumbai attacks left the FBI with no breathing space. Not only had he done his surveillance work in India successfully for the much acclaimed Mumbai attacks, but he also was conducting many more such surveillances, at times in Mumbai itself, for many such future attacks, when the Mumbai police was investigating the 26/11 case. Neither did the FBI share this information with India nor did India have any inkling of what was cooking at a distant New York FBI office. Nonetheless, European embassies were alerted in time about the arrest and the impending attacks on Europe were

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averted.28 Until 11 October 2009 when the FBI filed the chargesheet, India was unaware of the fact that a US citizen of Pakistani origin was involved in the planning and execution of the Mumbai attacks.

The Headley Affair Headley’s story is a meticulous description of the inside dealing of government departments and intelligence agencies with rough types and terrorist groups. A transparent understanding about Headley’s involvement with various organizations during the course of two decades would not only expose the duplicity of the US terror policy but also depict the subservient status of India in the eyes of the US.29 The Headley affair is yet another case where the country’s inability to deal with a high-profile terrorist is exposed.30 Interestingly, the Headley story also cracks many myths surrounding the working of spy agencies, terrorists and terrorist organizations. Way back in the late 1980s, Headley was an excellent catch for the CIA who used him as a human intelligence operative, to collect intelligence by penetrating into an area or facility or group, which were otherwise prohibited to white Americans, to collect information directly.31 Headley was an extended CIA agent, who was encouraged to do the real dirty work on the ground for the American spy agency.32 The secret and shadowy life of Headley reveals how national governments operate on the ground, how spies work in real life, how terror groups plan attacks and how attacks like 26/11 really happen. At the outset it is appropriate to say that spies don’t parachute onto rooftops in the dead of night or drop into rooms suspended by a thin wire. It is more likely that they will spend their days ‘schmoozing’, alert to the human emotions — greed, financial difficulty, lust, revenge, disillusionment and an irredentist goal — that make people vulnerable to cultivation as sources of sensitive information.33 Headley successfully used women and men, multiple governments and security agencies, militant leaders and terror groups for diverse purposes, often one against the other, before he himself walked into an intricate snarl. Headley was born as Daood Syed Gilani in Washington DC to American citizen Sherrill Headley and Pakistani national Syed Salim Gilani. Both his father and mother were working at the Pakistani embassy in DC, Gilani as a diplomat and Sherrill as a local staff. Their marriage broke up in the mid-1960s and Gilani left the US for Pakistan with his son. In Pakistan Gilani sent Headley to the prestigious

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Cadet College Hasan Abdal, a preparatory boys’ high school for the Pakistani military, where Headley met his future militant partner Tahawwur Rana. Meanwhile, in 1977, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and began military rule in Pakistan. Sherrill, who was settled in Philadelphia, travelled to Pakistan, picked up Headley and came back to the US to give a fresh life to her son.34 As a grown-up man, Headley was not much impressed with the daily drudgery of life his mother underwent every day to earn a living and showed promise in making easy money. Soon he came to realize that breaking the law was the most assured way to earn an easy income. He shifted to Chicago and became a small-time drug dealer. With a prolonged crime record, Headley was arrested for the first time in 1987 in Chicago. In or around 1988, he was convicted in a US District Court of New York on the charge of importing heroin into the US and sentenced on 5 January 1989 to four years’ imprisonment.35 After arrests in 1987 and 1988, he cooperated with the US drug agency in exchange for lighter sentences. He specialized in ties between Pakistani drug organizations and American dealers along the East Coast of the US. A September 1998 letter the US prosecutors submitted to court after an arrest showed that the government considered Headley — who had admitted to distributing 15 kilograms of heroin over his years as a dealer — so ‘reliable and forthcoming,’ that they sent him to Pakistan to ‘develop intelligence on Pakistani heroin traffickers’.36 The collaboration of Headley and the DEA continued for a good duration of time when he worked as an informant for the latter. Evidently, Headley was working for the DEA and enjoying unparalleled immunity from the US law enforcement agencies for long. The first warning about Headley’s complicity with terrorist organizations reached the FBI just after the 11 September attacks. Weeks after the attacks, a former girlfriend of Headley informed the FBI about his radical connections but the DEA’s reliance on Headley was so strong that the October 2001 warning was dismissed as the ire of a jilted girlfriend. Less than a month later, those concerns did not come up when a federal court in New York granted Headley an early release from probation so that he could be sent to work for the DEA in Pakistan. It is unclear what he was supposed to do in Pakistan for the Americans. Luis Caso, his former probation officer, said, ‘The DEA wanted him in Pakistan as fast as possible because they were close to making some big cases’.37 The same scenario was repeated prior to

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the Mumbai attack, when the CIA and the DEA, who were handling Headley and following his trail, knew his clandestine activities.38 However, Headley’s service was so dear to the US agencies that they preferred letting him continue his work rather than tipping off their Indian counterparts about the impending attack in India. However, the real surprise was that even after the Mumbai attack the US kept quiet about Headley. After the October 2001 warning from his ex-girlfriend, a similar complaint was filed by a neighbour of Headley to the FBI in July 2002. The third tip-off came in August 2005 after a domestic dispute that resulted in Headley’s arrest. His wife in New York phoned the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force there and described his ties with the LeT. In three interviews, she told investigators about his training, fund raising and work as an informant. She even offered to show them his emails, an offer the FBI rejected. The conviction of the mutual trust could be understood from the fact that American authorities sent Headley to work for them in Pakistan even months after the 11 September attacks and despite a warning that he sympathized with radical Islamic groups. Within no time the DEA’s trust proved counterproductive. Not long after he arrived in Pakistan after the 11 September attacks, Headley began training with terrorists while simultaneously receiving funding from the DEA. In other words, the DEA funded Headley’s training with terrorist organizations in Pakistan. Headley had attended training camps organized and operated by the LeT on five separate occasions in or around 2002 through 2005. In February 2002, he attended a three-week course and received indoctrination on the merits of waging jihad. In August 2002, on a three-week course, he was trained on how to use weapons and grenades and in April 2003, on a three-month course, he received training on close combat tactics and survival skills. The April 2003 course Headley undertook was known as Daura-e-Khasa.39 Daura-e-Khasa training is not meant for all potential LeT terrorists. A special recommendation from a ‘senior functionary’ of the LeT is required to undergo this training. This procedure was meant to prove the fact that the senior LeT people had faith in the person. The same procedure was followed by the arrested terrorist of the Mumbai attacks Ajmal Kasab during his training with the LeT. Headley found Abu Shoaib, a middle-aged and middle-ranked LeT functionary from Lahore to recommend him for the specialized training. In August and December 2003, he attended

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a three-week and three-month course, respectively, to receive training in counter-surveillance and tactical combat. So impressed was he with the content of the training that he immediately recommended the same to his friend Tahawwur Rana.40 After the December 2003 session, Headley’s combat training was over and from then onwards he had to attend extramural sessions on jihad and leadership. A closer examination of Headley’s story tells us that his government ties ran far deeper and for longer than what appears on the surface. He was a DEA informant until at least 2003, which is indicative of the fact that he was talking to American agencies even as he was learning to deal with explosives and small arms in terrorist training camps. It is evident that the CIA, which has already a couple of complaints about Headley’s radical connection, was not entirely unaware of his inroad into the LeT. In Pakistan, Headley was acting as a mole on behalf of the CIA to penetrate inside the LeT. During this period Headley was a double agent allowed by the CIA to work for them as well as for the LeT.41 The Americans turned their eyes away from the nasty dealings of Headley until he was useful for the CIA. The CIA’s original intention was to let Headley work for the LeT so that the American spy agency might unravel hard facts about the LeT-ISI connection, which would subsequently be used to corner the ISI and use the evidence as a bargaining chip to refrain Pakistan from its cooperation with the Taliban and Haqqani Network in the Afghan war.42 The US decision to declare the LeT as a foreign terrorist organization on 26 December 2001 did not came after comprehensive conviction but because of post9/11 schizophrenia.43 In 2003, when the DEA was funding Headley, the LeT was not a threat to the US and the organization had not yet targeted any US interest. Meanwhile between 2005 and 2008, two more complaints about his terror links from two of Headley’s ex-wives reached the American authorities. In February 2006, Headley changed his name from Daood Gilani to David Coleman Headley. In December 2007, Headley’s Moroccan wife went to the US embassy in Pakistan with what would become the fourth tip-off about him. In a previously unreported tipoff, she told the US officials in Islamabad that she suspected her husband of being linked to the 2007 bombing of a train in India that killed dozens of people and had been blamed on the LeT militant group. During that meeting, just 11 months before the Mumbai attacks, she also warned that Headley was on a ‘special mission’.44 Indian police

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investigated the 2007 train bombing but never reached Headley and the US did not inform India about what Headley’s wife had told the American officials. Four months later, in April 2008, the Moroccan wife returned to the US embassy in Islamabad and offered another, more specific warning. She informed that Headley was on a ‘special mission’ and he had both US and Pakistani passports. She revealed that she had been innocently used in an express train bombing in India in 2007. Headley used her subtly to conduct reconnaissance of the Samjhauta Express train. The information provided by his wife proved useful for Headley to allegedly plant a bomb in the train. The allegations again connected Headley to the LeT and, for the first time, to a terrorist attack. Despite such overwhelming evidence, the US officials refused to take action against Headley. On 1 December 2008 the final tip-off about Headley’s militant connection surfaced — once again in Philadelphia. The news of the Mumbai tragedy was so disturbing that a friend of Headley’s mother contacted the FBI by phone. Sherrill Headley, David Headley’s mother, had died 10 months before the Mumbai attacks. The friend told agents about a past conversation with Sherrill Headley that now led her to believe that David Headley ‘had been fighting alongside individuals in Pakistan to liberate Kashmir for the past 5 to 6 years’. Such was Headley’s clout in the American administration that despite numerous complaints about his decidedly terror links, the authorities preferred to look the other way. For the Mumbai attacks, he had begun his scouting and surveillance in 2007, staying at least twice at the Taj Hotel, and hiring fishermen for private tours of the port that helped him identify where the sea-travelling attackers could land. It is unclear when and why his connections with the US government ended. An examination of Headley’s movements in the years before the Mumbai attacks shows that he had overlapping, even baffling, contacts among seemingly disparate groups — Pakistani intelligence, terrorists, and American drug investigators.45 After the Mumbai attacks, Headley apparently turned his attention to Europe. He was forced to suspend the Denmark plot in March 2009 after the LeT’s refusal to back the attack but he never stopped searching for new sponsors.46 In the final months of his odyssey, Headley scouted targets for Ilyas Kashmiri, who by that time had became the al-Qaeda boss and who was behind the threats of Mumbai-style attacks in Europe in 2010. Headley and Kashmiri began plotting the attack against the

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Danish newspaper. Kashmiri put Headley in touch with al-Qaeda operatives in Europe who would help him. He travelled to Britain in August 2009 and then to Stockholm. The British intelligence eavesdropped on a secret meeting with Headley in central London and came to know about the plot of the attack in Denmark. They alerted the US about this.47 After this, the CIA allowed Headley to remain scot-free for another two months. When Headley was planning to go to Pakistan for a longer period as his visa indicated, the FBI grew impatient and arrested him. Stories were planted in the international media that the American authorities had had no idea about his involvement in the Mumbai attacks until he told them. But this is too naive a proposition to believe, considering the long and convoluted involvement of Headley with the American agencies. The Headley affair is murky and opaque and with all probability, he was a US double agent who had gone rogue. Spies around the world are expert at lies. That is necessary for their covert operations. In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, demanded to know from Secretary of Defence Robert Gates how long would the US support Pakistan, ‘governments that lie to us’? Gates, a former director of the CIA, had an unvarnished answer. He told the senator, ‘First of all, I would say based on my 27 years in CIA and four-and-a-half years in this job, most governments lie to each other and that’s the way business gets done’.48 In the Mumbai attacks case, the lies by the US agencies cost India dearly. On the issue of Headley the US cooperated with India to the level which suited the country. Beyond that, US officials always searched for ways and means to subterfuge any Indian attempt to get legitimate cooperation, legal entitlement49 or friendly concession.

The Roadblocks Tracking Headley’s trail is particularly significant for understanding the Mumbai terror attacks. However, Headley’s arrest and subsequent proceedings, as it was proved, became an India–US tussle. Terrorism in the modern world is no more confined to national boundaries as shown in the Mumbai attacks case; players from five countries spanning three continents were involved.50 Trans-border execution of terrorist modules like 9/11 or 26/11 has made international cooperation essential.51 The US denied India the slightest information

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about Headley after his arrest in early October 2009, which led to incessant media reporting in India that an obvious America–Headley conspiracy existed and the US was not fully committed to the war on terror. Immediately after the news of Headley’s arrest, a team of Indian intelligence officials headed by National Investigation Agency (NIA) official Loknath Behera, Inspector General (operations), arrived in Washington on 1 November 2009. For the whole week, the Indian team parked themselves at a Washington hotel, while Headley was 958 km away from the Indian team in a Chicago jail. The week-long stay could not produce any result, however, and the team failed to grill Headley. Evidently, neither the Ministry of External Affairs nor the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India had done their homework before the team’s departure to Washington. Resultantly the visitors justified their failure and inability to meet Headley with a familiar explanation — ‘bureaucratic’ and ‘procedural’ hurdles. The team left Washington for India on 8 November 2009 emptyhanded and without the slightest sense of remorse. They did not make any extra efforts to get access and the ‘hurdles’ continued for the next seven months. Even after that time, the access was narrow and almost inconsequential. During this delay, the LeT would have been able to cover up its trail in India, withdraw those of its cadres whose identities were known to Headley and reorganize and relocate its sleeper cells.52 Contrary to this, India allowed the FBI team to grill the lone captured terrorist in the Mumbai attacks, Ajmal Kasab, for nine hours within three weeks of the attacks, on 20 December 2008. In other words, the US team found their way to Kasab within 21 days after the Mumbai attack without any ‘bureaucratic’ or ‘procedural’ hurdles. In late November 2009, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Washington on an official visit. An economic powerhouse, India was too big a strategic partner for the US to annoy. The Indian Head of State made his displeasure known to the US president on the issue of the intriguing behavior of various law enforcement agencies. President Obama personally looked into the matter and informed the Prime Minister that soon a team of high-ranking US officials would visit India with a file on Headley. The team visited India and shared some information on Headley and the chargesheet filed by the US against Headley was made public. After the failure of India in early November and with the assurance of President Obama at the end of November, India began a fresh

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exercise to get access to Headley. Tempers were high in India when External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna took up the matter with his US counterpart Hillary Clinton. Krishna was not able to overwhelm Clinton, though. Meanwhile, a worried US administration found ways to give India limited access to Headley. During the month of March 2010, the US intelligence service officials persuaded Headley to enter into a plea agreement.53 An arrangement was made in the plea agreement, which was submitted on 18 March 2010, to allow foreign agencies to grill Headley but at the same time, it denied foreign agencies to have sweeping access or extradition of Headley.54 The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs was restless and after many rounds of verbal exchanges and interactions, India’s Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam again left for the US in April 2010. During his visit, the law officer held several rounds of talks with the US Attorney General Eric Holder and after a small telephonic chat between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama, the US administration finally agreed to let the Indians interrogate Headley. Earlier, the US had refused Headley’s extradition to India, but Headley’s plea agreement enabled the affected countries, India and Denmark, to interrogate him in the US by way of deposition, video conferencing or letters rogatory.55 On 1 June 2010, a four-member NIA team flew to the US after the decks were finally cleared for unqualified access to Headley. On the same day, India-US strategic dialogue also started in Washington. During the four-day strategic dialogue process, Secretary Clinton reiterated the continued US commitment to provide full cooperation and support in ongoing counter-terrorism investigations, including through continued exchanges of information between designated agencies and bringing the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack to justice.56 Led by Loknath Behera, the NIA team had two other police officers, Swayam Prakash Pani (Superintendent of Police) and Sajid Farid Shapoo (Superintendent of Police), and a lawyer, Dayan Krishnan. Behera, a 1985 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Kerala cadre, was the recipient of the President’s Medal for distinguished service in 2009 and part of many high-profile cases during his tenure at the CBI. Most important of them are the Babri Masjid demolition case, former Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya’s assassination case, the Graham Staines murder case, the Purulia arms drop case and the sensational murder of poet Madhumita Shukla. Shapoo, a 1998-batch IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, was credited with eliminating the Gadaria dacoit gang during

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his stint in Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh. Pani, a 2000-batch J&K cadre IPS officer, was an expert in the terror networks of the LeT. Special public prosecutor Dayan Krishnan had graduated from the National Law School of Bangalore in 1993, and was named amicus curiae (friend of the court) by the Supreme Court in various cases. Krishnan’s primary role was to sort out any legal roadblocks that could be put up by Headley’s lawyers. Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam personally handpicked the team for Headley’s interrogation and Subramaniam was in constant touch with the team to guide and advice during the interrogation. One of the prime motives of the team’s interrogation of Headley was to understand the terror agenda envisaged by the ‘Karachi Project’. The inquiry into the Mumbai attacks, as reported in the media, although very important, was of secondary concern for the Indian team. This was because the ‘Karachi Project’ was an ambitious umbrella project to target India under which the Mumbai attack was a mere event. The team questioned Headley for 34 hours during the period starting from 3 June to 9 June 2010. Once the NIA team completed the interrogation, many pieces of the 26/11 puzzle started falling into place. During the course of the several sessions that the Indian team were granted by the US authorities to grill Headley, the LeT terrorist confirmed a number of key points, including some startling details about the involvement of the Pakistani establishment in the planning and execution of the Mumbai attacks. Apart from the Mumbai attacks, the interrogation unravelled the relationship and collaboration of the LeT and the ISI and the latter’s covert support of the terror agenda against India. The 109-page interrogation document is considered to be one of the most telling evidences on the motive and modus operandi of the ISI’s support of militancy and functioning of the ISI and its proxies.57 However, the US authorities denied any audio or video recording of the interrogation or the presence of an Indian magistrate, fearing that India would leak the report to embarrass the US. Consequentially, the NIA report carries no credible evidential value and could be admitted in the court of law as a ‘mere piece of evidence’ supplied by the police.58 As Headley’s past and his role in the Mumbai attacks clouded his reason of arrest, incessant media reporting and complaints forced the US government to look into the matter. In October 2010, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James R. Clapper Jr, began

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an investigation into his government’s connections with Headley. The investigation identified at least five separate cases in which relatives or associates of Headley warned that he was training or working with Pakistani militants. The DNI review found that plausible allegations about Headley’s extremist ties began as early as 2001. Subsequently complaints about him became more numerous and specific than previously disclosed.59 In the light of the new revelation after the Headley interrogation, Indian public opinion became anti-American. The news that the US had had prior knowledge about Headley’s manoeuvering and did not share the information with India angered the public. During his November 2010 India visit, President Barack Obama assuaged Indian concerns and shared with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the results of the probe into why the US intelligence agencies failed to connect Headley to the Mumbai attacks. The US, in its one-page response to India about its review of the LeT terrorist case, admitted for the first time that ‘some information relating to Headley was available’ to its government officials prior to ‘the Mumbai attack’. However, the US official clarified that ‘it was not sufficiently established that he was engaged in plotting a terrorist attack in India’.60 But the explanation was more of a diplomatic trick than a convinced interpretation of the event. Even after the arrest of Headley and his conclusive admission of guilt in the Mumbai attacks, the US was chary of extraditing Headley to India. A variety of reasons explained this. First, the US feared that, if extradited, Headley might reveal uncomfortable truths about the shady functioning of various US departments, which would embarrass the US internationally. Second, Headley’s extradition might expose too much about the ISI, an ally of the CIA and a partner of the US war on terrorism, which would cause consternation in US–Pak relations. The US would certainly have liked to avoid this at all cost. And finally, the extradition of such a person would send a wrong signal to the CIA’s future covert operations and set a precedent for the US to extradite its citizens to a junior partner like India by citing an international treaty. It would also allow the trial of a US citizen in a third-world country, a proposition that thoroughly troubled the collective minds of top officials of the superpower.61 Resultantly, Headley received immunity and stealth from Indian law and, as we would see later, in a strange turn of events, Rana was selectively acquitted by a US court from any involvement in the Mumbai attack.

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He was found guilty of all other offences other than this, despite the presence of irrefutable evidence. On 25 June 1997 India signed an extradition treaty with the US under which, ‘a person shall be proceeded against or punished under the ordinary criminal laws of the requesting state, and shall be subject to prosecution or punishment in accordance with the requesting state’s ordinary rules of criminal procedure’.62 However, the FBI politely turned down India’s request for extradition of Headley on the grounds that he would have to first undergo a sentence which could be imposed on him in the US for the offences committed if convicted. The cruel denial and the polished assurance of extradition at a remotely nonexistent date removed many layers of niceties in Indo-US relations. The US court, which pronounced its verdict on 24 January 2013, sent Headley to jail for 35 years. The US mood could be judged from the fact that the FBI very politely conveyed that Headley could be handed over to India once the 35-year long sentence was completed in the US. However, by signing a plea agreement with the US government, Headley dodged a death sentence. India made every effort to secure the extradition. Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, whose opinion was sought by the government, has asked the government to act tough and settle for nothing less than his extradition, arguing that a plea bargain cannot be a substitute for an international treaty, as the latter would always prevail over domestic laws. Naturally, it requires superior strength and power, which India lacks, to enforce the opinion of the Indian law officer. Such is the terrorism policy of the US, which has been fighting a decade-long global war on terrorism in Afghanistan. US intellectuals called India’s demand for Headley’s extradition hyperbolic and immature. Such remarks were a grim reminder of India’s colonial past, where the British rulers used to term each of India’s genuine demands as immature. Contrarily, the US showed zero tolerance to all who were remotely connected or even merely suspected in the 9/11 conspiracy. Scores of people were arrested in various countries around the world and transferred to the US for trial — extradition treaty or no extradition treaty. This act of the US had the full backing of US intelligentsia. When times are bad, this category — the intelligentsia — is the most despicable in all countries. It is the intelligentsia that has both the capacity and the inclination to rationalize tyranny.63

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The Karachi Project Our inquiry into the secret history of the Mumbai attacks makes it essential to understand the loathsome ‘Karachi Project’. The now famous project has a fairly long history. The earliest traces of the ‘Karachi Project’ were found in the year 2003. Terrorism, which has been wreaking havoc in many third world countries, especially in the Asian continent for a long time, had little or no impact in the Western world in the pre-9/11 era. The US policy on terrorism has always been dubious. Gen. David Petraeus admitted that there were no questions about the long-standing links of the US with the ISI and militant organizations. He informed a Congress Committee: ‘Let’s remember that we funded the ISI to build these organizations, when they were the Mujahideen and helping to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan’.64 The realization about the menace of terrorism reached the US only after 11 September 2001. Immediately after the 11 September attacks, President Bush’s administration asked Pakistan to close all its terror camps and told the ISI to end support to terror activities. Gen. Musharraf was forced to shut down the ISI’s ‘Forward Section 23’ in PoK, resulting in the closure of all training camps and ISI operations offices in that region.65 The ‘Forward Section 23’ was the ISI’s main unit in PoK and notorious for its deep involvement with terrorist groups. This section is part of the ISI’s operation against India. It is a combination of safe houses and camps that has provided cover and refuge to top militants and it has funds to run training camps, including recruitment, transportation and accommodation costs.66 In 2003, the slain Pakistani journalist Syed Salem Shahzad reported about a clandestine special investigation cell jointly headed by a member of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency and a member of the FBI. The secret report revealed that many jihadi groups were actually paramilitary organizations where the unit commander reported to an army officer. Pakistani military officers were invested in the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, including the management of funds for training and recruitment.67 The US had all the information but refused to act on that information. However, the game changer was the 11 September attacks. The closure of the ‘Forward Section 23’ has resulted in the departure of all ISI officials involved with the section. Under the new circumstances, all ISI officials and militant leaders left PoK for Karachi and the megacity became the new hub for anti-India jihad.68

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The ISI’s Karachi front office replaced its PoK office to manage terrorist organizations. It was during this time, more precisely late 2003, that the agency started a plan under the pet name of the ‘Karachi Project’.69 The project had the tacit approval of the military ruler of that time, Gen. Musharraf. However, after the departure of Gen. Musharraf, the project continued without the knowledge, approval or involvement of the civilian government. The ‘Karachi Project’ is a burning and unvarnished example of how the ISI is a ‘state within a state’ in Pakistan. It is also about how the agency is exporting terror not only to India but to other corners of the world. In official and intelligence circles of India, there is a difference of opinion on the definition of the ‘Karachi Project’. The intelligence agencies of the country agree with the above description but the home ministry believes that the ‘Karachi Project’ actually involves the recruitment of Indian youth by the LeT with the help of local terror kingpins by giving them training in Pakistan and sending them back for terror attacks against India.70 It is elemental to remove the confusion in the understanding of the ‘Karachi Project’. Curiously the name ‘Karachi Project’ was first reported in India in February 2010, after the interrogation of Headley by the FBI in December 2009. It is a high-profile ambitious project of the ISI. The home ministry erred in its assessment about the grand project as its conclusion was plainly based on the confession of Headley, without any background verification. There are actually two ‘Karachi Projects’ available against India — one headed by the ISI and another run by the LeT. The home ministry’s assessment could be related to the LeT’s ‘Karachi Project’, while the original ‘Karachi Project’ is that of the ISI. In Pakistan the rise of the ‘Karachi Project’ coincided with the former President Pervez Musharraf’s losing battle against extremism.71 Headley indicated to the NIA that the ‘Karachi set-up’ was responsible for the attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Srinagar rally on 17 November 2004 and the 11 July 2006 serial train blasts in Mumbai. Headley identified the militant, trained by Major Abdur Rehman Hashim, who had attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s rally at the Sher-e-Kashmir stadium in Srinagar.72 Headley said that the ‘Karachi set-up’ was the brainchild of Major Hashim, who had close links with Illyas Kashmiri of al-Qaeda.73 He devised the plan when he was in the ISI under the guise of a Pakistani army major. A 40-year-old army major from the Sixth Baloach

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Regiment, he took premature retirement in 2003 to join the LeT with the combined role of a militant instructor and LeT ideologue.74 When Major Hashim left the ISI, another officer, Colonel Shah, became the head of the ‘Karachi Project’ and also became the link with Major Hashim.75 It was during this time that the ISI’s ‘Forward Section 23’ was vacated from PoK and shifted to Karachi.76 So the ISI’s ‘Karachi Project’ remained intact even after the departure of Major Hashim from the ISI, and the ISI tried hard to bring as many militant groups as possible to destabilize India under the ‘Karachi Project’. After leaving the ISI, Major Hashim joined the LeT but later developed differences with the LeT leadership and joined the HuJI of Ilyas Kashmiri, who was also a former Pakistan army para-commando.77 Major Hashim was directly in touch with the al-Qaeda top brass, including Ilyas Kashmiri who was No. 2 in the al-Qaeda hierarchy for some time after the death of Osama bin Laden. One month after the raid on Osama on 3 June 2011, it was reported that Ilyas Kashmiri was killed in a drone strike in the hit that levelled a compound in Gowakha village of the Wana area in South Waziristan. Although reports of Kashmiri’s death in the past had been found to be incorrect, Anand Gopal, the leading journalist of Kabul, had confirmed his death.78 The US state department removed his name from the list of wanted people. Major Hashim had also met Osama bin Laden a number of times. He started a new set-up to continue his militant activity, which was given the name as Jund-ul-Fida (Army of Fidayeen) by Osama bin Laden himself.79 To continue his fight against the NATO forces, Major Hashim along with Captain Khurram went to the Afghan province of Helmand and fought against the British troops. Khurram died in the battle in Helmand in 2007 while Major Hashim came back to Pakistan to continue his operation.80 Headley’s testimony, which said that the aim of the ‘Karachi set-up’ was to ‘launch operations into India using militants of local origin’, reflects the understanding of the Home Ministry. When Major Hashim left the ISI and joined the LeT, he brought his understanding about the ‘Karachi Project’ to the LeT. So apart from the ISI’s ‘Karachi Project’, Major Hashim started a new ‘Karachi Project’ in the LeT.81 The two projects are different and run by different agencies but the new project started by the LeT has the ‘complete backing of the ISI’. The LeT’s ‘Karachi Project’ is slightly different from that of the ISI. The LeT’s project is controlled by Sajid Majid and looked after by Abu Yaqoob, the head of the LeT’s naval wing, at the operational level. The LeT’s

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‘Karachi set-up’ aims to recruit boys from Maharashtra and Gujarat and train them before sending them into various Indian cities.82 How was the ISI’s project different from that of the LeT’s? The ISI’s Indiacentric plan was no secret and it has already been discussed how the agency has been spreading its campaign against India. After the 11 September attacks and the US pressure on the ISI, the agency shifted its operational base and command structure from PoK to Karachi in 2003. The pet name ‘Karachi Project’ came from this shifting of the ISI base. Under this plan, the ISI used to look into the whole of India and devise plans for different parts of the country to encourage subversive activities. The ISI’s plan was not limited to one incident or one part of India. Neither was the agency relying on only one militant organization to implement its ‘Karachi Project’. The ISI’s plan was a grand project which encompasses and represents the ISI and the Pakistan army’s strategic vision against India.83 Islamabad’s conviction that militant groups are an important part of its strategic arsenal to counter India’s military and economic advantages describes vaguely the LeT’s ‘Karachi Project’. Pakistan’s actions were motivated by a desire to counter India and for this purpose its army and the ISI were involved in a range of anti-India activities, including sheltering Indian fugitives like Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon as per under the ‘Karachi Project’.84 Major Hashim brought with him the ‘Karachi Project’ formula to the LeT in or around 2005–06. The LeT quickly adopted it and that was how the LeT’s ‘Karachi Project’ was born. As per this plan, the LeT used to train both Indian and Pakistani militants and send them to India to operate sleeper cells and orchestrate bombings. Accordingly, the LeT used to train Indian nationals in Pakistan before sending them back to India for terror attacks. Headley admitted that he had been undergoing LeT training along with a Maharashtrian person.85 ‘The link between the LeT and Indian Mujahideen (IM), as part of the project, has been established. The LeT pushed David Headley into India to recce potential targets. IM operatives went to Pakistan and viewed videos shot by him, so that they could be sent to India to carry out attacks’.86 Meanwhile, the Indian intelligence agencies were groping in the dark when the ‘Karachi Project’ was directly responsible for the deaths of over 500 Indians in at least 10 bomb blasts between the years 2005–10. The ISI supported the LeT to wage a proxy war against India and it was alleged that India did the same with its fifth columnists in Pakistan. However, when ISI saboteurs came to India they were always arrested. Some because of their long beards, some

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because of the Salafi rituals they practised, and some because of the language they conversed in. Pakistani intelligence agencies wondered why ISI operations in India were always exposed while Indian proxy operations in Pakistan never came to light. The ISI understood the fact that the alleged Indian saboteurs in Pakistan were rarely Indian, as the Indian intelligence hired Pakistanis as their proxies. Pakistan decided to do the same, and in 2007 and 2008, it used Indian saboteurs to carry out bomb blasts in Delhi and other places. For the first time the Indian security agencies were clueless about the origin of the saboteurs.87 The new strategy of the ISI was adopted under the grand design of the ‘Karachi Project’. The ‘Karachi Project’ has a wide reach. The ISI has an exclusive ‘Nepal set-up’ under the project as well, to pursue its design by putting Nepalese and their Indian relatives on the job. It is located in the eastern part of Nepal, which has a sizeable Muslim population.88 What surprises observers is that such a grand project was operational for so long but Indian security agencies were clueless about the existence of such a grand ISI plan. The Pakistani spy agency had handled the project for nearly a decade successfully without giving the slightest hint to India’s intelligence agencies.

The Mumbai Attack Plan The NIA report on the Headley interrogation removed the barriers to understanding the whole structure of the Mumbai terror attacks plan, as the report reveals the background, motive, purpose, and role of each criminal and the whole story of the assault from infancy to end. No other document explains so clearly the working relationship of the LeT and the ISI as the Headley interrogation document. Apart from the 26/11 attacks, the revelation also provides a glimpse into the inner sanctum of the ISI and tells how, where, when and who is perpetrating terror attacks against India. While analyzing the Headley guilty plea, confession and interrogation report, readers must understand that his admission of guilt and explanatory account about the attacks was inside information about the ISI or the ISI side of the story. These documents were the confessions and thoughts of a terrorist who is frank, articulate, witty and analytical, who removed the veil of secrecy from the ISI-LeT collaboration, an event which had never before occurred in the history of the ISI. His story would be considered as the ISI side of the tale

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because Headley, although trained by the LeT, being an American citizen, was very useful for the ISI.89 Due to his education and exposure, Headley could identify himself more closely with the disciplined ISI than with the mercenary force of the LeT. Headley had the wit and wisdom to understand the grand purpose of the ISI, which he liberally shared with his interrogators. Apart from his committed LeT cadre, Headley was a sharp and practical person well aware of the exigency of the time, situation and circumstances.90 Headley betrayed his drug lords when he was first arrested by the DEA in 1988, which earned him freedom from jail and a fabulous life. He offered to cooperate with the DEA to trace drug lords operating in Pakistan, Afghanistan and on the East coast of the US in exchange for freedom and money.91 He deceived his DEA employers in 2002 and joined his ideological passion, the LeT–ISI combine. While working with the drug dealers in Pakistan, he got in contact with LeT leaders and his inclination for radical Islam started growing after the September 11 attacks. His regular visits to Qadisia Mosque in Lahore is a testimony of his growing admiration of militant Islam. Qadisia Mosque is frequented by LeT leaders and LeT posters overwhelm the area.92 Headley admitted that he was more comfortable with the ISI personnel whose training was scientific in nature.93 He had compared his training in the LeT with that of the ISI and he found the latter more interesting. He was introduced to the ISI after his arrest at the Afghan border in 2006 and after that, while he was working as an LeT operative, most of his dealings were with the ISI. His trainers, Major Iqbal, Major Hashim and another ISI NCO, impressed him. He was paid by the ISI on various occasions and finally he was asked by the ISI to recce more targets than the LeT.94 Although Headley informed very many things about the LeT, his information about the ISI is far more crucial and rare. Direct and irrefutable information about the ISI is scarce and they always used to deny any allegation about the agency. Headley’s revelation was directly connected with the ISI and very close to the truth. All this qualified him as more of an ISI agent than that of the LeT. When the time and situation demanded, he tricked both the ISI and the LeT and spilled the beans against both in 2009 to dodge his imminent death sentence in the US. He entered a plea bargain with the US to avoid extradition to India. It is difficult to assert that the Headley interrogation report of the NIA is free from doubt, as there is every possibility that he had fed his Indian

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interrogators questionable details about the ISI and LeT agenda. However, Headley’s revelations are largely considered to be the most comprehensive details of Pakistan’s participation in terrorist activities. It is important to know the tale of Headley’s participation in the Mumbai conspiracy from the very beginning. Headley told his interrogators that he had formally joined the LeT in 2002 and attended five LeT training sessions between February 2002 and December 2005.95 However, a closer look into his confession reveals that all his combat training was completed on or before December 2003. Only preaching about jihad and other kinds of clandestine training took place after December 2003 until December 2005. What is astonishing about this period is that he was working for the DEA and a couple of complaints had already surfaced about his radical links. Headley successfully dodged the zero-tolerance policy of the US to Islamic terrorism after 11 September attacks. A multifaceted personality, he was sufficiently disciplined to work for the hunter as well as for the hunted for so long. Charles Swift, the attorney of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, once said, ‘Mr. Headley was working as a DEA informer when he started training with the LeT, balancing his work for the militants, the ISI and the DEA the same way he balanced three wives’.96 Until late 2005 the LeT, which trained him for five sessions, was not ready to induct him for any hardcore operation immediately after the completion of his training. The LeT, as a mature terror organization, normally does not believe or rely on fringe fighters who are merely seeking adventure and fame. As the organization has no dearth of manpower of any description, it takes a long time for the LeT to repose faith in a person, especially a person of foreign connection. The normal practice of the LeT is to train radical elements and then send them to operate as sleeper cells or to carry out some terror act individually and, if possible, privately.97 So when Headley completed his training he did not get absorbed in any of the LeT sponsored high profile operations. He was left high and dry. Even two years after the completion of his militant training, he was not given a combat mission. This had a demoralizing effect on him. Headley used his interrogation by the ISI officer as an opportunity to impress his interrogator and told him about his training with the LeT, his Kashmir liberation plan and his ‘bleed India’ agenda. It is significant to recall that by this time, Headley, who used to divide his time in between Pakistan and the US had already confided about his Kashmir liberation mission to his mother, who would later reveal the

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same to one of her neighbourhood friends, who in turn informed the FBI about his Kashmir mission. Major Ali was stunned with his revelation and impressed by Headley’s commitment.98 Apart from other assignments, Major Ali’s posting at the Afghan border was precisely to vet potential recruits for India-oriented hardened operations. In an intelligence dossier in May 2010, India named him and another Pakistani official, Major Siraj, who were operating from FATA. Indian intelligence received this intelligence from their Afghan counterpart. The two officers, according to Afghan authorities, had been operating out of an ISI office that was referred to as MI-422 and was allegedly behind the 26 February 2010 attack in Central Kabul where Indian officials were also killed. MI-422 was said to be in an army cantonment in the Tal area of Kohat, Pakistan. These two officers had been planning and coordinating activities against Indian entities through various terror groups like the LeT.99 The meeting with Major Ali proved to be most opportune for Headley, whose participation was enlisted for the ISI’s ‘ongoing plans against India’. After the name change, Headley had reached the second phase of his training. The ISI officers knew the fact that Headley had been trained by the LeT in rudimentary and hardened militant techniques but not in sophisticated spy craft. So from March 2006, Major Iqbal started his training on the streets of Lahore in clandestine photography and spy craft. The Headley–Iqbal comradeship grew with time as both of them had a penchant for professionalism. Major Iqbal taught Headley the basics of intelligence, which included several lessons, such as how to create sources, how to take cover and so on. After explaining the theory, he would take Headley to the streets of Lahore to execute them. The ISI training enables hardened terrorists to melt in a hugely populated multicultural society like India. They remain untraced and wreak havoc. Armed with the ISI spycraft and the LeT’s hardened militant training, Headley returned to the US in June 2006 to get an Indian visa. Headley took his route to India via the US only to avoid any alarm about his Pakistan visit. In the visa application form, he faked his father’s name and received the visa for one year. In July, he arrived in Pakistan before his India visit to get instruction from his multiple bosses — the ISI’s Major Iqbal and the LeT’s Sajid Majid.100 On 14 September 2006, Headley reached Mumbai from Lahore to be received by the contact of Tahawwur Hussain Rana. Headley would stay the next three months in India with the pretext of running an immigration

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office at the behest of Rana. On 14 December 2006, Headley returned to Lahore with two memory sticks containing video footage of almost all the important and iconic landmarks of Mumbai. In Lahore, he first contacted Major Iqbal and submitted one memory stick and explained about his Mumbai visit. Next, Sajid was waiting for him in Muzaffarabad in PoK to receive the other memory stick.101 After that, Headley resumed his intelligence training again with Major Iqbal in Lahore. During the next 18 months, Headley made eight trips to India. Before his second trip to India, on 21 February 2007, Headley married Faiza Outalha, a Lahore Medical College student from Morocco. This was his third marriage, which he kept secret from his second wife Shazia Gilani. Before and after each of his trips to India, Headley used to visit Pakistan to get instructions and to submit the report of work done in India. Why did Headley make nine trips to India before the Mumbai attacks? Headley himself was not sure about the purpose of his first visit. Trained by the LeT and tested by the ISI, naturally he was very keen to use his skill on the ground in Kashmir. He wanted some action packed adventurous days and hence he immediately agreed to the collective instruction of the ISI and the LeT to visit India. He did not complain about the change of the theatre of war, which was shifted from Kashmir to Mumbai. During the initial days of Headley’s visit to India, it was not entirely clear whether Majid or the LeT’s other bosses were aware of the Mumbai attacks plan. For unknown reasons, the ISI was allowing only limited information to the LeT in the early days of the Mumbai planning. This is a manifestation of the fact that the ISI was the sole author of the Mumbai attacks and the LeT was a mere proxy force.102 The US ambassador in Islamabad wrote in a secret cable that ‘There is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance levels in any field as sufficient compensation for abandoning support to these groups (the LeT, Afghan Taliban and Haqqani), which it sees as an important part of its national security apparatus against India’.103 Also there was no trace of al-Qaeda’s presence during the planning of the attack. During his third trip in March to May 2007, Headley had stayed with his Moroccan wife at the Taj Hotel, where 31 people would die in the 26/11 attacks. On another occasion he had taken a video of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) train station, where 58 people would be gunned down. In April 2008, he made his seventh trip to Mumbai and spent five days taking boat trips off Mumbai to find the perfect location for the attackers to land. After a few boat trips

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he found the Cuff Parade area in Mumbai as the most suitable place for the attackers to land. After the April 2008 visit, Headley gave the images to Major Iqbal and the GPS co-ordinates he had logged to LeT high command. Everything was working well until Headley got fed up with his multiple visits to Mumbai and other places for surveillances, videography and photography. He was frustrated with the delay in effecting a terror plot and failed to understand why he had to do such a lot of reconnaissance. He complained to his friend and HuJI operative Major Hashim and informed him that he was frustrated with the LeT as they didn’t have any concrete plan. Major Hashim provided him with a book, Imman Ki Bad by Abdullah Azzam, to pacify his frustration.104 The ISI was in no haste and the LeT was removing each possible obstacle before a spectacular attack. Until Headley’s second visit to India, the ISI was keeping its cards close to its chest. They had sent the impression to the LeT that the surveillances were routine, normal and not limited to one city or place only. However, the veil over the detailed attacks plan was removed after Headley’s third visit. Finally, after comprehensive discussion at three places, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Muzaffarabad, the plan to send a group of terrorists through a sea route to Mumbai and inflict a commando style attack was decided. Headley used to meet and report to Major Iqbal about his India work at an undisclosed destination, which he called the ‘fourth location’, purportedly the ISI headquarters at Rawalpindi. Majid wanted Headley to report to him at the Bait-ul Mujahideen camp of the LeT in Muzaffarabad and Zaki-urRehman Lakhvi and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed always used to summon Headley to report to them at the LeT headquarter at Muridke, Lahore. These were the three places where the attack plan was discussed and decided.105 However, the meeting places were not always the same and all the people used to meet Headley interchangeably at these places. For example, after his seventh trip to India, when Headley returned to Pakistan he met Sajid at Rawalpindi where Zaki-ur-Rehman was also present. Initially the attack plan was just like any previous attack, to target only the Taj Hotel with a couple of attackers. However, with the easy trickling in of information from Headley’s videos, and the brilliant teamwork of the ISI and the LeT, the plan took on bigger proportions. Once an agreement was reached that Mumbai would be targeted, each member used to add one iconic place in Mumbai to the attack list. Major Iqbal instructed Zaki-ur-Rehman to target the Taj Hotel. The

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LeT team further discussed the plan at an LeT safe house located near Ayub Colony in Rawalpindi.106 During his third trip, Headley was specifically asked by Major Iqbal to get detailed video footage of the second floor of the Taj Hotel. The second floor housed the security system of the hotel including the CCTV monitors. This survey was for the explicit purpose of damaging the second floor on a priority basis, which the terrorists did, to deny a view of the attackers to the security personnel.107 Similarly, Majid proposed the idea to attack the CST. Leopold Café was added at the insistence of Headley and Nariman House was included as a target after the advice of Major Hashim. The Trident Hotel attack plan was a collective decision. Sending armed attackers via the sea route was an ISI proposal to which everybody enthusiastically agreed.108 But despite the brilliant teamwork, the working relations of the two organizations, ISI–LeT, was complex. As mentioned earlier, Headley had two handlers and he had to report about each of his trips twice to his two bosses, and this was making the attack plan more intricate. To get clarity into the ISI-LeT plans, it is necessary to understand the nature of the work Headley had done for both the organizations. Before each of his trips to India, Headley used to get separate and different instructions, one set of directions from Major Iqbal and one from Majid to follow during his India visit. While Majid’s instructions were limited to targeting Mumbai, Major Iqbal’s mandate was wider and beyond Mumbai and covered almost all parts of India. Major Iqbal’s assignment and instruction was part of the ‘Karachi Project’. The split between the ISI and the LeT is a closely guarded secret. There is almost no media reporting or information on this subject. The ISI and the LeT collaboration started only in or around 1993 when Gen. Musharraf wanted to introduce his wrest Kashmir plan. Since then, the LeT worked in close collaboration with the ISI. However, as it is often reported, the LeT is not entirely dependent on the ISI funding. Although part of its funding came from the ISI and some of its cadres are also on the pay roll of the ISI, the LeT has its own source of funding. In fact, by the time the two organizations met, the vast LeT campus in Muridke was already functional.109 Ever since the association of the two organizations, the ISI always tried to ‘control’ the LeT by way of indoctrinating, funding, coercing and threatening. The ISI or Pakistan army officers borrowed by the LeT were not always happy with the LeT leadership. One such officer was Captain Khurram. As the LeT was flush with funds, Captain Khurram complained that the

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LeT leaders were wallowing in luxury and less committed to jihad.110 Another officer of the Pakistan army borrowed by the LeT was Major Haroon. He was also not comfortable about the LeT’s functioning as he thought that the LeT’s top leadership was hypocritical. This is because Major Haroon’s long association with the LeT convinced him that the LeT leadership was not always true to its ideology. Their commitment to the cause of Kashmir had often been subservient to the agenda of the ISI. For example, after the Mumbai attacks when Pakistan was under tremendous pressure from the US and EU to reign over terror organizations, only the LeT agreed with the ISI not to wage major terror attacks in India to avoid embarrassment for Pakistan. Major Haroon was uneasy over the LeT’s decision not to get involved in the Afghan theatre where all other Islamic mujahideen groups were waging war against the coalition forces. Apart from that Major Haroon also witnessed that most of the plum posts like treasurer of the LeT were held by the relatives of the top LeT leadership. Major Haroon even said that since the day the ISI started using Indian saboteurs, the LeT’s utility for the ISI had been reduced.111 However, 60 per cent of the Pakistan army comes from a rural Punjabi background, the same area where the LeT also draws its cadres. Since the LeT is an adherent of the Ahl-e-Hadith school of thought, Khuruj (revolt) is not allowed as it is prohibited in Ahl-e-Hadith. As the LeT was pro-establishment, the Pakistan army did not feel threatened by this group.112 All this acted as the reasons behind the convenience for the ISI in dealing with the LeT. However, even today, the local police and ISI personnel regularly grill, arrest and question LeT cadres in almost all provinces of Pakistan.113 The strongest differences between the LeT and the ISI surfaced sometime during the year 2003–04. Major Haroon and Major Hashim complained about Zaki-ur Rehman and his work to their superior ISI officer Colonel Shah. Both these army officers, who were working for the LeT, even distributed pamphlets against Zaki-ur Rehman. There was strong pressure from the ISI to replace Zaki-ur Rehman as military commander with an ISI favorite. However, it did not happen.114 As a matter of practice, each of the senior LeT leaders were handled by one ISI officer. Zaki-ur Rehman’s handler was Brigadier Riyaz of the ISI until his retirement.115 After the retirement of Brigadier Riyaz, the LeT Amir Hafiz Saeed and its military chief Zaki-ur Rehman used to interact directly with the ISI Director. Nevertheless, despite such an intricate web of interaction between the two organizations, suspicion and doubt about each other remained. Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the

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ISI Director, was not entirely informed by the LeT about the Mumbai conspiracy. Lt. Gen. Pasha also advised Zaki-ur Rehman in Adiala Jail to disown the Mumbai attack to counter international criticism of Pakistan. However, the LeT refused to disown it.116 While the LeT had only one assignment (for the time being) for attacking Mumbai, for the ISI, Mumbai was just one in a series of attacks. Considering this basic difference in the scope of attacks of the ISI and the LeT, the attack plan was not made in one room and at one go. The LeT’s consideration was local, as the organization was pondering if Muslims present in CST would be killed in the event of an attack. But the ISI’s calculation was far reaching as the agency asked Headley to videotape the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and its large residential colony in Mumbai, the Osho Ashram in Pune, a house in Goa where Israeli soldiers stayed during holidays and the outer boundary of the prime minister’s residence, the defence ministry and the National Defence College (NDC) in New Delhi. While Headley used to give reports and video recording of all surveillance assignments for the LeT to the ISI, it was not the other way round. The ISI solicited the LeT’s service for the Mumbai attacks only and the agency was considering many more future attacks in India either with the aid of the LeT or 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri.117 Kashmiri, a resident of Mirpur in PoK, was an ISI protégé until Maulana Masood Azhar was released from Indian jail in exchange for IC-814 passengers in 1999. After the release of Azhar, the ISI forced Kashmiri to work for Azhar’s JeM, which he refused to do. Consequently, Kashmiri was arrested by the ISI twice in 2003 (on charges of conspiring to kill Gen. Musharraf) and in 2005 (for not closing his operation in PoK), which soured his relations with the ISI. After his release, Kashmiri, a veteran of HuJI left PoK for North Waziristan to start his own Brigade 313 to fight against the NATO forces in Afghanistan and against the Pakistan army, which was fighting on behalf of the US. Considering this troubled understanding between the ISI and Kashmiri, it is difficult to imagine an ISI-Kashmiri collaboration as revealed by Headley to the NIA interrogators. Later, Kashmiri joined al-Qaeda and immersed himself in the Afghan war. However, Kashmiri also harboured motives to attack Indian interests. While answering a question on 15 October 2009 Kashmiri said the ‘Mumbai attack was nothing compared with what has already been planned for India in future’.118 Considering their common India agenda the ISI, although no longer sharing space with

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Ilyas Kashmiri, could facilitate Kashmiri either by providing logistic and operational input from a distance or by allowing other Pakistanis to support Kashmiri. The Kashmiri affair is a testimony to how the ISI managed myriad groups of militant, often even rival groups and individuals, against India.

Ajmal Kasab: The LeT Side of the Story The Headley account, which provides detailed background information, made it easy to understand how the ISI and the LeT collaborated on the attacks and how the two organizations along with other groups had been working for so long. Headley’s story is a patchwork of the Mumbai attack plan, which does not entail what had happened on the ground in Pakistan before and during the preparation of the attacks. It is essential to know the LeT side of the story to understand the entire conspiracy plot. Ajmal Kasab’s confession is considered the most valuable piece of information for unearthing the LeT side of the story, which significantly joins the dots in the Mumbai conspiracy. Before going to the interrogation and confession report of Kasab, at the outset questions arise — why do young boys like Kasab become terrorists in Pakistan? What is the root cause of terrorism? Why do people join groups like the LeT to kill and die? What motivates them to follow a violent lifestyle? The root cause of terrorism and its precise motives are normally considered to be a result of fanatic adherence to religion, prevalence of inequality in society, presence of illiteracy and poverty, and because of foreign occupation of pious Muslim lands in various parts of the world. Experience tell us that even one of the above reasons is enough for a person to become a terrorist. For example, none of the 9/11 attackers or the 7/7 London bombers were poor, illiterate or more unequal than others, but still they became terrorists. Religious sanctity for jihad as provided by leading Islamic scholars is considered as a major reason for urbane and sophisticated youth to become terrorists. The outcome of the search for the reason and motive as to why people become terrorists differs from person to person and from incident to incident. While all these reasons cited above are true and exploited by the leaders of terrorist organizations, ‘the power and sense of supremacy enjoyed by the leader of terrorist organizations’ is considered one of the most vital but unexplained reasons which motivates individuals to become terrorists in Pakistan and other Islamic countries.

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In Pakistan, ambitious individuals, inebriated with a passion for their medieval past, found terror institutions to satiate their quest to control a vast empire with an infinite right to govern in the garb of Sharia law.119 Groups like the LeT and their terror complexes like Muridke or mosques like Haqqania and Binory provide impeccable power of governance to the leader of the institutions as these complexes are virtually free from state control and these institutions provide surprising immunity to their leaders for anything they advocate. This phenomenon in turn encourages others to emulate the leaders of these institutions to taste power. Mumbai-like attacks are very much required to prove their claim and success as a terrorist organization, which are vital for their survival.120 The impunity, power and influence of Pakistani terrorist organizations come with the success of their terror attacks against India and in other part of the world as Pakistan uses terrorist groups as strategic assets.121 The heads of most of the terrorist organizations are entitled to huge benefits in terms of funding, fame and authority inside Pakistan. This is one of the root causes of terrorism. Leaders of terrorist groups require foot soldiers to protect their positions. Through the foot soldiers, the leaders of various militant groups implement their terror agenda. No matter what ideology and motive the leaders of such organizations possess, their position is a big allurement for them and others to continue terrorism.122 These leaders use every possible means to attract young and old into their fold. Leaders of terrorist organizations target the young, illiterate, poor, religiously inclined and impressionable minds as recruits for their organizations. However, these qualifications are not exclusive as terrorist groups are also recruiting educated, rich and sophisticated urbane people. Kasab and his compatriots fit into the first category. Kasab’s revelation is a telling acknowledgement of the reality of how the foot soldiers, who join terror groups for one or other allurement, are deceived and entrapped into terrorist organizations by the leaders of those groups. Once inside a terror group, the foot soldiers are left with no options other than to fight and die. During his interrogation Kasab revealed that ‘not a single person of wealthy background was inducted into the LeT training camp’.123 He asked ‘why should wealthy people come to such tough and grinding environment?’. Leaders of terrorist organizations mislead young minds. When Kasab was offered sea training in the high seas of Karachi, which also included how to

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fish, he thought that he had got a job and he could earn a respectable living. He was not informed by the LeT why he was being prepared as a mariner and as a fisherman. It is alleged that the ideology espoused by Muslim scholars like Abu ala Maududi, Hasan al Bana and Abdullah Azzam cropped up in many Muslim-dominated countries and acted as the harbinger of terrorist activities. But the truth is far from mere ideology. Kasab had never heard any of these Islamic ideologues. Nor had he heard about any other Islamic scholar. When asked about jihad, Kasab said, ‘What Jihad Sir? God will never forgive me’. He was told to shoot as many people as possible and then die so that his family would get a handsome monetary reward. Earlier his father told him that if he joins the LeT, his family could overcome poverty. There was another allurement for Kasab to join the LeT. His mentors told him that ‘wealth, virgin and heaven are ensured for those who die in jihad’.124 Initially, terrorist organizations espoused the cause of jihad to free Muslim lands from foreign bondage and to remove the deplorable plight of their Muslim brethren in other countries. But once recruited, the leaders of terrorist organizations made it a one-way route for young terrorists with no exit available for them. Kasab realized this once he was recruited for a specialized hardened operation. Suddenly he understood that the operation for which he had been chosen was not worth sacrificing his life. He questioned the LeT commander Zaki-ur Rehman whether ‘he himself has participated in any jihad?’ When Zaki-ur Rehman told him that he had fought many battles and participated in jihad, Kasab was pacified and persuaded to take part in the Mumbai attacks.125 But not all were persuaded like Kasab and there were many who fled the camp. Out of the 50 mujahideen undergoing the hardened training along with Kasab, 10 fled the LeT camps as the training was too rigorous in nature’.126 The LeT runs scores of educational institutions, religious seminaries (madrassas) and its functioning includes a well-managed recruitment and indoctrination system. Suitable cadres are picked up from various parts of Pakistan as well as other Muslim countries and training is provided to militant cadres and the Ulemas (religious scholars). The Ulemas are given a 42-day training. At the time of induction, the young recruits are made to go through a course called Bait-urRizwan (taking the oath of allegiance to the Prophet). For the Mumbai attacks, the LeT added the sea-training programme to its normal courses. The normal courses consist of four stages of rigorous armed

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and intelligence training. Apart from this, the LeT also runs a suicide squad and the group has acquired fame for its liberal use of suicide attacks in Kashmir. Its suicide squad is divided into two groups called ‘Jaan-e-Fidai’ and ‘Ibn-e-Tayamiah’. The first group consists of highly motivated terrorists and the second comprises mujahideen suffering from incurable diseases. The members of ‘Jaan-e-Fidai’ were sent for the Mumbai attacks. Although the RDX, guns and illicit cargo used for the 1993 Mumbai blasts came from Pakistan through the sea route, armed terrorists had never come via sea previously. In 2007, the LeT commanders used a commercial fishing boat to test the route to send a fidayeen squad to Mumbai.127 The LeT started its marine operation in 2005 and Western journalists who travelled to PoK to report on the earthquake in 2005 discovered that in Muzaffarabad, a large rubber pontoon boat belonging to the LeT had been carrying passengers in the Neelum River. The LeT used to practise underwater operations on a lake at its base headquarters campus at Muridke.128 For the Mumbai attacks, there was a clear division of responsibilities amongst the various organs of the LeT and the ISI. Headley, Rana, Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed were assigned the task of reconnaissance and surveillance. We will discover more about Ansari and Ahmed in subsequent pages. Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi were to get sponsorship and recruitment for the attacks. Training of the recruits was a joint responsibility of the LeT and the ISI. The ISI was to provide overall assistance starting from funding and intelligence input to operational guidance during the entire operation. The entire plan for the Mumbai attacks was operated over a period of two years. Each terrorist had to undergo a series of training and indoctrination sessions organized by the LeT. Training received by the ten terrorists under the LeT command was as follows:

a) ‘Daura-e-Sufa’ (29 Days’ Preliminary Training) In search of employment and livelihood, Kasab reached the LeT office in December 2007 in the Raja Bazar area of Rawalpindi. He was quickly recruited into the LeT and LeT officials guided him to Muridke with a letter saying ‘Daura-e-Sufa Markas Taiba Muridke’. The first part of this training was to convert him from Sunni into Ahale-Hadis and then he was taught the customs of Hadis.129 This training is basically all about jihad through speeches and information on the

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importance of jihad. Kasab concluded the training in January 2008 and was recommended by the LeT officials for the next level of training.

b) Daura-e-Ama (21 Days’ Combat Course) After Daura-e-Sufa one is required to prove one’s ability and genuineness to go for further training. Kasab was forwarded to Mansera Markaz Aksa along with a letter with the code ‘Bhai Wasul Daurae-Ama’. During the 21 days of Daura-e-Ama training, the recruits are trained in physical activities, running, mountaineering, and how to use a Kalashnikov, rifle and pistol.130 This training also included lectures and practical demonstrations in concealment, camouflage, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering.131 After the first two courses, cadres were allowed to spread themselves across India and start their own sleeper cells. But those who were part of the LeT’s mainstream design and ongoing plan were supposed to stay and undergo more specialized training called Daura-eKhaas.

c) Daura-e-Khaas (75 Days’ Advanced Combat Course) Kasab was forwarded to the LeT office in Model Town in Okara district of Punjab. From Model Town, he was supposed to collect a secret paper stamped with the LeT logo called ‘Daura-e-Khasa ka Rukka’132 for future verification. After a thorough inquiry and confirmation of credentials by telephone, he received a letter from an LeT official at the Model Town with the code ‘Bhai Vasul’ with the stamp of the LeT on it. Unlike the previous two trainings, this training was harder and different. This training camp is heavily guarded and it is prohibited to enter or exit without the permission of the head trainer. Kasab received training during May–July 2008.133 Skills like how to open and close Kalashnikovs, firing of a gun, operation of a rocket launcher, use of a hand grenade, use of a satellite phone, use of a GPS system, map reading and how to survive 60 hours without food and still climb a mountain with a heavy load were taught. The Mumbai attacks continued for 62 hours and crossing the LoC in Kashmir would take 60 hours as well. The recruits were taught about the handling of sophisticated/ heavy weapons, mortars, remote control devices, anti-personnel/tank mines and explosives, including IEDs.

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d) Daura-e-Ribat (30 Days’ Training on Intelligence Agencies) The ‘Daura-e-Ribat’ is the specialized training given only to special recruits. Information about country-specific security laws and skills and strategies of security agencies are provided during this training. The trainees are asked to rehearse how to dupe, snoop and mislead security agencies. Only a select few are allowed to have the training, which is given at the LeT headquarter at Muridke. Trainees are taught ‘how to inquire about the target, how to keep an eye on the target, how to follow the target and if someone is following you how to mislead him and finally how to hide one’s identity’.134 The finer aspects of ambushes/raids, operation of walkie-talkie sets, first aid/para-medical training and audio-visual education on commando operations are taught. When a person has received all the four stages of training, he would beat even the most professional government-trained personnel. All the 10 terrorists recruited for the Mumbai attacks had received the four stages of training and after that, they received sea training as well. Kasab confessed that one ‘Major General’, whose real name and identity is not known, was inspecting the training and all the trainers were his men. Headley also confessed that Major Hashim along with Major Haroon and Captain Khurram were LeT trainers. After their ground training, the ‘Major General’ instructed his trainers to give the Mumbai attackers sea training. Unprecedented sea training was offered to the terrorists in the high seas of Karachi, which prepared them for a long sea voyage from Karachi to Mumbai. As part of the sea training, the recruits were taught how to read maps, how to measure the depth of the sea, how to use GPS for the sea route, how to use the nets of fishermen and how to operate a ship.135 They were also trained on how to use a fisherman’s net just to mislead the Indian navy personnel in case of an inquiry. Fearing a leak, the sea route assault plan was kept secret until November 2008. On the 13th day of Roza in 2008, top LeT commanders Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, Muzzammil alias Yusuf, Abu Alkama, Abu Hamza, Abu Kahfa and Abu Umer Saeed gravitated to the Beit-ul Mujahid camp of the LeT in Muzaffarabad. The attackers were already present. It was there that the top commanders for the first time revealed their plan about the sea route assault. The date must have been 13 November 2008 as per the Gregorian calendar. Hafiz Saeed addressed the gathering and said, ‘now the time for jihad has

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come. Now we have to decide how to attack India’. Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi said, ‘the prosperity of India is because of Bombay, so we have to attack Bombay. All of you Mujaheedin are trained well in the sea route. We will attack Bombay through the sea route’.136 The information gathered about the targets in Mumbai by field surveyors like Headley, Sabauddin and Ansari were shown to the terrorists and adequate instructions about the mode of attacks were provided. The attackers were taken to a huge hall in an LeT safe house in Karachi, which was also the control room of its media wing. On a large screen Zarar Shah, the head of the LeT’s media wing, showed the roads that led to the multiple targets in Mumbai. The footage collected by Headley was shown along with the Google Earth website on how to navigate from the landing site to the target.137 Kahfa, one of the top LeT commanders, had shown handmade maps prepared by Sabauddin Ahmad and Fahim Ansari. The date of attack was fixed as the 27th day of Roza or 26 November 2008. Hafiz Saeed instructed the terrorists to hijack a Hindustani boat to reach Bombay from Karachi.138 The final voyage of the terrorists to Mumbai started on the afternoon of 23 November 2008 in a boat belonging to the LeT named Al Hussaini. The 10 terrorists and a few other LeT operatives captured MV Kuber, an Indian fishing trawler in the Jakhau area within Indian territorial waters, along with its five sailors and one navigator. They took the four sailors hostage and shifted them into Al Hussaini and forced the navigator of MV Kuber, Amar Singh Solanki, to drive the boat towards Mumbai.139 The detailed planning also entailed the transfer of adequate diesel fuel from Al-Hussaini to MV Kuber to facilitate the journey towards Mumbai. On completion of this task, the seven Pakistani terrorists who were on board Al Husaini left for Pakistan along with the four Indian sailors. After a journey of 582 nautical miles, the terrorists reached close to the coast of Mumbai on 26 November 2008 at approximately 4 p.m.140 During the entire journey, they were taking instructions from LeT commanders through satellite phones. Once they reached the coast, instructions came from the LeT commanders to kill the navigator Amar Singh Solanki. The 10 terrorists killed the navigator and kept his dead body in the engine of MV Kuber, where it was later discovered by the security forces. After a few days, the dead bodies of the rest of the four passengers of MV Kuber were found in the sea. Four miles out from the shore, the terrorists shifted to a dinghy and reached the Mumbai shore at the Bhai Bhandarkar Machimar

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Colony opposite Budhwar Park at approximately 8.30 p.m. Eight terrorists landed at Cuffe Parade near Budhwar Park and the rest again sailed towards the Hotel Oberoi/Trident in the Marine Drive area of Mumbai. All the terrorists reached their destinations undetected and unopposed, except for a minor scuffle with one of the residents of the Machimar Colony, who later informed the police, but by then it was too late.

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umbai has been outraged, broken and martyred by incessant terror attacks but finally Mumbai was victorious. It is important to know about the fabled past of this city, which has been the target of terrorists for long. Wedded in the soil and civilizational journey for millennia, it is largely difficult to say precisely when exactly human habitation started in Mumbai. In 1939, Malcolm Todd, a British historian and archaeologist, while taking a stroll along the coastal areas around Kandivali in Northern Mumbai, stumbled upon Pleistocene sediments at the shore. Todd’s discovery took Mumbai’s history back to the Stone Age. Tectonic shift shrunk Mumbai to its present shape, and formerly it was an archipelago of seven islands (Bombay, Parel, Mazagaon, Mahim, Colaba, Worli, and Little Colaba). There was a rich presence of human activities in Mumbai in pre-history and recorded history. In the 2nd century BCE, the comparative serenity of the region invited the Koli fishing community to settle here.1 After 2,200 years, even today, the old living style of the Koli fishing community along the city’s shoreline has not changed. Hinduism, then Buddhism, then Hinduism again flourished in Mumbai until the 14th century, when Islam overwhelmed the island only to be handed over to Christianity (Portuguese invaders) in 1534. The Christian Portuguese named it Bom Bai, meaning ‘good bay’. The significance of the city and region was understood by maritime communities like the Portuguese and the English. On 17 November 1869, when the Suez Canal was opened, Mumbai became a maritime port of international importance. In 1661, the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza married England’s Charles II and the Portuguese gave the city to the English as part of her dowry. The British anglicized the name Bom Bai to Bombay. The city surpassed and replaced Surat, the earlier presidency of the East India Company as the main business

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centre. When the British defeated the Marathas in 1818, the isolation of Bombay from the rest of India ended. In 1838, the Colaba Causeway was constructed to connect Colaba with the city’s mainland. At 3.35 p.m. on 16 April 1853, when a train with 14 railway carriages and 400 guests left Bombay’s Bori Bunder for Thane with a 21-gun salute, the jubilation of the citizens of Bombay, who celebrated the day as a public holiday, exceeded all limits. In 1853, Bori Bunder, situated in the Colaba area, was connected with Thane by railway line. Bori Bunder station changed its name twice, first to Victoria Terminus (VT) and then to CST, its present name. Budhwar Park, a railway station for trams during the British Raj, was later converted into a residential complex for railway personnel. The colony is situated along the coastline, which is now encroached by slums. Located at Wodehouse Road in Colaba and named after Mr. Fateh Chand Budhwar, the first Indian chairman of the Indian Railway Board, the Budhwar Park slum is mostly inhabited by indigenous Koli fishermen and women. The economically independent Koli women are full of self-pride and aggression. Even an ordinary conversation among themselves leads to clashes and chaos. On 26 November 2008, one of the Koli fisher women was first to spot the 10 terrorists while they were de-boarding from the rubberized inflated dinghy at the Budhwar Park sea shore. On that evening, when all others in the Budhwar Park fishing colony were busy enjoying an India–England one day cricket match, around 8.30 p.m., the woman spotted the terrorists who had just got off the dinghy. Suspicious of their appearance and attire, she initiated a brawl in her patent quarrelsome Koli woman style. Sensing the gravity of the situation, a few fishermen who were drinking near the beach intervened and inquired about the identity of the visitors. Normally no visitor would challenge the authority of the local residents of Budhwar Park fishing colony, but armed with all modern weapons, the fidayeen terrorists were fearless of the locals. A minor scuffle broke out as the terrorists insisted that the residents not disturb their march to their respective destination. Their Pakistani handlers had visualized such a situation and to avoid any altercation with the locals, they had all been provided with identity cards with Hindu names from Arunodaya Degree College of Bangalore and Hyderabad. Ismail, one of the 10 terrorists, was angered and arguing with the residents while Ajmal Kasab tried to rescue his

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team with the excuse that they were students and they were here for the purpose of sightseeing. The heavy baggage of the visitors and sudden disappearance of the dinghy created suspicion in the mind of one of the fishermen, who sensed danger and informed the Mumbai Police. But before the Mumbai Police could grasp the whole scenario, the terrorists had already taken up their positions.

Mumbai Attacked On 26 November 2008, as video cameras rolled, the 10 Pakistani terrorists wreaked havoc for nearly three days, a humiliating and seemingly interminable display of India’s impotence in the face of terrorism. National Security Guard (NSG) commandos, who eventually wrested control from the attackers, took more than nine hours to arrive at the crime scene from their base near New Delhi. The media-sensationalized 26/11 attacks were a huge blow to India’s counter-terrorism effort. Much has been said about the attacks in the popular media. However, information and a secret history about what exactly happened during those 62 long hours is still lacking. A threadbare analysis of the lengthy operation is very important for our inquiry to understand the Mumbai operation and India’s counterterrorism effort. In a carefully crafted plan, the terrorist masterminds in Pakistan had given detailed instruction for the 10 terrorists about their composition during the operation. They were divided into five groups of two persons each. The five groups were: a) Ismail Khan and Ajmal Kasab, b) Imran Babbar and Nasir, c) Saheb and Nazir Ahmad, d) Hafiz Arshad alias Hayaji and Javed, e) Abdullah Rehman (chota) and Fahadullah. The targets were also identified beforehand — CST Station, Malabar Hill, Taj Hotel, Leopold Café, Oberoi Hotel, and Nariman House.

Leopold Café Four pairs out of five de-boarded from the dinghy at Budhwar Park and parted to reach their respective destinations. Abu Sohaib and Nazir Ahmad took a taxi to reach Leopold Café on the busy streets of Colaba. Shoaib placed his bag in the back seat but sat in the front of the car to engage the driver with talk about Mumbai weather and wine. Ahmad, who was in the back seat, had to finish the ugly task

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of planting a bomb in the car without inviting the suspicion of the driver. He managed to plant an 8 kg RDX laden IED with a timer without catching the driver’s attention. Abu Shoaib inquired whether the driver had heard of Leopold Café; was the hotel an expensive one and was it frequented by foreigners? Drawn like moths to a flame, most tourists end up at this Mumbai travellers’ paradise at one time or another. Situated at the corner of Colaba Causeway and Nawroji F. Road, the café is suffocated by the congested footpath and over-excited visitors. Since 1971, Leopold has had wobbly ceiling fans, open-plan seating and a rambunctious atmosphere conducive to swapping tales with random strangers. There is a huge signboard facing the road but there is every possibility that you may miss the hotel while walking on the footpath as it is crowded by small shops and souvenir vendors. It offers a rich menu but the lazy evening beers are the real draw. It is one of the favourite destinations for foreigners. At around 9.30 p.m., Abu Shoaib and Nazir reached Leopold Café, removed their bags and stopped at the corridor of the café. Neither the crowd nor the hotel staff noticed anything strange until both of them removed their AK-47s from their rucksacks. Within no time they started indiscriminately shooting from the gate of the café. Visitors to the hotel were shocked and before they could understand what had happened, 11 people were dead. The thick round pillars inside the café saved the lives of many tourists. All the staff immediately ran towards the kitchen and shut the kitchen door. A couple of staff died as there was very little space to escape. The most unfortunate of them was one who successfully ran out of the hotel with an injury but was shot dead outside under the eyes of hiding shopkeepers in the area.2 After a while not a single person was visible inside the café as most of them were dead, or hiding under the tables. Some feigned dead. The terrorists had thrown hand grenades also to ensure that no one inside should escape. The mayhem continued for half an hour and after the Leopold shooting both terrorists walked immediately towards the Taj Hotel located on the seaside at Colaba. The distance is nearly 200 metres. While walking on the street from the Leopold to the Taj Hotel, they never stopped firing from their AK-47s. During their walk, both terrorists were virtually unchallenged. It was not as if there was no security person on the street. One incident was particularly galling. A teenage boy, Raj, who worked at a cyber café on the street the terrorists had taken to reach the Taj Hotel, was advised by his

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uncle to close the shutter of the cyber café and switch off the light. Hearing the gun sound and grenade blast, the old man immediately realized that this was a terrorist attack. Raj challenged the wisdom of his uncle and did not close the door, which was partially open. The boy was curious to get a peek of what was happening on the street. Just in front of his cyber café one of the terrorist’s AK-47s ran out of bullets. The terrorist stopped and sat in the middle of the road. He took his spare magazine from his bag and reloaded his AK-47, while the other terrorist was guarding him. It was during this time that the terrorist shot a person from the chemist shop, just opposite the cyber café. People were hiding for their lives. There was another teenager, who happened to be a friend of Raj, hiding behind a wall near the cyber café. A policeman with his SLR rifle was also hiding along with this teenage boy inside the congested lane. The boy asked the policeman to fire on the terrorists and kill them. The policeman refused and said that, ‘I am not sure if my firing would kill the terrorists or not, but if my fire misses the terrorists would certainly kill not only me but also the boy’.3 The terrorists remained safe as a policeman armed with his rifle refused to shoot them. After the incident, one of the two terrorists planted a 10 kg RDX laden IED in a cab near a restaurant called Gakul, just before the Taj Hotel. The Mumbai Police Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad diffused the bomb in the nick of the time and saved many lives. Unchallenged throughout their march, Abu Shoaib and Nazir Ahmad reached the Taj Hotel to help Hafiz Arshad and Javed who had already taken position inside the hotel. Leopold Café was the first place where the terrorists appeared on that fateful evening. The RDX-laden IED planted by Nazir Ahmad in the taxi during their journey from Budhwar Park to Leopold Café exploded in the Mazgaon area, which caused massive damage to the area and killed instantly the two lady passengers in the taxi and the unsuspecting taxi driver. In addition, 19 innocent bystanders in that area suffered serious wounds.

CST Attacks Once out of the Budhwar Park residential area, Khan and Kasab hired a taxi to reach the CST or VT station. The duo engaged the driver with talk about Bollywood when Kasab planted a bomb with a timer, just below the driver’s seat, which was supposed to go off

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two hours later. Once at the CST station, the two terrorists saw that the crowd shown to them in the CD, back in Pakistan, was far less than the crowd present in front of them. Not prepared to waste precious minutes, as their friends must have started attacking, which might alert the security forces, Ismail tried to contact his Pakistani handler Abu Hamza through his mobile. There was no network, so he snatched Kasab’s mobile to call Hamza. But there was no network on Kasab’s cell either. Unsure about their target, both of them entered the station through the passage. They climbed the nearby stairs and what they saw convinced them that they were not at the right place. People waiting there were carrying heavy luggage and huge bags, which is a sign that this platform was meant for trains going out of Mumbai. The taxi driver who brought Ismail and Kasab to the CST station understood that the boys were not from Mumbai and since they were carrying heavy bags, he assumed that they were going out of Mumbai. Hence, he dropped them at the station where trains left for other cities and not at the adjacent local station. There was no time to find out where the crowded local train station of CST was located. There was a toilet not far from where the two were standing. Kasab and Khan went inside the toilet one after another and prepared themselves for the onslaught. Both came out of the toilet and signalled to each other to start firing. Ismail removed a hand grenade from his bag and threw it towards the crowd. They started indiscriminate but controlled firing on the crowd there. Their firing was supported by grenade attacks at regular intervals. A stampede followed and people started running for cover. Within a short period of time the entire station was empty. The sound of firing and bombing alerted the security personnel and after a while the railway police reached the spot, but were either unarmed or ill equipped. Both terrorists were giving cover fire to each other with their automatic rifles. A posse of Mumbai Police joined the railway police who were fighting the terrorists. The conventional police force could not face the terrorists’ onslaught of modern weapons and grenade attacks and got killed within no time. CCTV footage of CST station shows that one railway police constable with an SLR rifle hiding behind a pillar refused to fire when his colleague asked him to fire at the terrorist. Enraged by the behaviour of his colleague, the other railway policeman, who was at the other end of the pillar, rushed to him, snatched his rifle and fired at the terrorists. He missed the targets but his firing

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sufficiently confused the two fidayeen terrorists, who thought that a bigger rescue force had arrived. Fearing that their plan might go awry, both of them left the place in haste. After pumping nearly 12 magazines from their two AK-47s, the two terrorists got out of the CST station using the staircase and the bridge, which was subsequently made famous by the characters Latika and Jamal of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. Once outside the train station, they started looking for a taxi purportedly to go to Malabar Hill, a posh locality in central Mumbai. The street outside CST station was almost empty due to the firing and grenade attacks inside the station. Police restricted the movement of vehicles, hence Kasab and Khan could not find any taxi. Just opposite the CST station was The Times of India building fitted with CCTV camera. The camera caught the terrorist duo in action when they tried to open the vehicles standing on the street. They could not open any of the locked vehicles, hence they walked ahead in the street while firing at whatever came in their way. Around this time Vinita Kamte, wife of Additional Commissioner of Police (Mumbai East) Ashok Kamte, was returning to her Mumbai home with her children Rahul and Arjun from Pune. While on the road she got a call around 9.45 p.m. from Ashok Kamte, who advised her to ‘switch on the television as soon as she gets home as some kinds of gang war [sic] have gripped Mumbai’.4 Electronic media had by then already flashed images of Hemant Karkare, head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), donning a bulletproof jacket outside the CST station. A 1982 batch IPS officer, Karkare was known in police circles for being a soft-spoken, calm but sharp officer. During his stint with RAW in Vienna, when he used to liaise with UN agencies, he received several plum offers from the UN on account of his excellent work. However, he refused all of them to serve his country. Ashok Kamte, who was initially ordered by the main control room to take charge of the Trident Hotel, was called up again by the main control room, which was now under Rakesh Maria, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime). Maria directed Kamte to join Karkare at the Cama Hospital where firing was going on. Kamte hogged the headlines in 2007 when during his posting in Solapur, he stormed into the home of a notorious Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) accused of rape, beat him up and dragged him to the police station. A 1989 batch IPS officer, he had been praised by many including M. N. Singh, Police Commissioner of Mumbai, who in his annual confidential report

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in 2007 mentioned, ‘This is a future chief of the Maharashtra police force’. Hemant Karkare, who was known for his composure in adverse circumstances, was the first to sense the gravity of the situation. He asked encounter terrorism specialist Inspector Vijay Salaskar to join him. Salaskar, in his 25 years’ service, had eliminated many gangsters including Amar Naik and was known in police circles as an encyclopaedia on the Mumbai mafiosi. Karkare was aware of the fact that although Salaskar was adept in the use of an AK-47, the weapon had recently been withdrawn from him. The only person with an AK-47 around that time was Ashok Kamte, a veteran of many encounters. The wireless log of the Ericsson network meant for communication of police officers and the Motorola network, an exclusive network for senior officers, shed some light on what exactly happened on that fateful night. At 11.24 p.m. ATS chief Hemant Karkare called the main control room and informed, ‘We are at Cama Hospital. Firing and grenade blasts are going on, 3–4 grenade blasts have taken place in the last five minutes. We need to encircle Cama Hospital. We are near SB 2 office side. Send a team from the front side of Cama Hospital. This needs to be CO-ORDINATED so that there is no cross firing. Similarly Mr. Prasad who is there — ask him to request the army for their commandos. We are near SB 2 office, firing going on the 5–6th floor plus three to four grenade blasts heard. Over’.5 Enforcement did not come, so the officers decided to jump into action. As per the testimony of Naik Arun Jadhav, the three senior police officers, Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar, who were awaiting police reinforcement, decided to enter Cama Hospital along with the two wireless operators, one driver and Jadhav. The officers were eager to support Sadanand Date and his team. Salaskar had taken the wheel from the driver and proceeded slowly towards the Cama Hospital. The terrorist ambushed the police vehicle and firing started. Meanwhile, unable to find a vehicle, Khan and Kasab walked into the Cama Hospital where they kept firing for nearly one hour. Inside the Cama Hospital, Additional Commissioner of Police Sadanand Date was holding ground despite a heavy loss of officers. The terrorists heard the sound of women and children crying in the building. Recalling the instruction of their handlers in Pakistan to inflict the maximum casualties, they decided to enter each room of the hospital and kill all the women and children. To avoid more casualties, a wily nurse in the hospital locked all the rooms from the inside. Unable to open the doors the terrorists left the hospital building to come out on

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to the street, where they were challenged by Inspector Dhurgude. The terrorists killed Inspector Dhurgude quickly. Police Sub-Inspector Baburao Dhurgude was posted with the Anti Terrorism Squad but on that fateful night after finishing his duty he was relaxing at home along with his wife and two grown-up children. His cell phone rang and he left in a hurry. He reached Cama Hospital around 11.45 p.m near the corner of St Xavier’s College (on the front side of the Cama Hospital). He spotted the terrorists walking on the footpath in front of St Xavier’s College. The terrorists had jumped out of the front gate of the hospital as there was no police force to engage them. Dhurgude with his service revolver confronted the terrorists only to receive a fatal wound at the corner of the Rang Bhavan lane. About this time, Maruti Phad, the driver of a high ranking Maharashtra Government officer, was asked to pick up his boss from his residence and drop him at the Mantralaya (Maharashtra Assembly Building) to attend to an emergency call. Since Phad resided in the nurses’ quarters in front of Cama Hospital, he got into the official Honda City car with a red beacon light to proceed towards the Mahapalika Marg when he saw Inspector Dhurgude being shot by the terrorists. The terrorists saw the vehicle with a red light reversing in the street, so Kasab started firing towards the vehicle. After a while the vehicle stopped. Khan threw a hand grenade on to that vehicle to push it further backwards. After that when the terrorists reached the vehicle they saw that the driver (Phad) was dead and the doors of the vehicle were locked from inside with all the windows down. They tried to open the door but failed. Phad had used the central locking system of the car and slumped below his seat feigning to be dead. Karkare, meanwhile, sent his message to the main control room when the terrorists were still holed up inside the hospital. The terrorists saw Karkare’s vehicle with its yellow light coming to their side. Both of them stood close to the boundary wall behind the bush. When the vehicle approached the terrorists, they started indiscriminate firing. Ashok Kamte was smart enough to get out of the car to return fire. Kasab received bullet injuries on both his hands and was almost incapacitated. The darkness and bushes provided a strategic advantage to the terrorists while the police officers were sitting ducks under the street light, inviting direct bullets from the guns of the terrorists.6 After a lot of fire, silence followed and out of the seven policemen in the vehicle, only Jadhav, with five bullet injuries, survived to tell the tale. He had feigned death.7

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Jadhav lay in the vehicle amidst the dead bodies of his six colleagues. Both the terrorists threw the dead bodies of Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar on the road. They wanted to remove the other four dead bodies but the Toyota Qualis had been locked from the inside. Thinking that all four were dead, they drove the vehicle with the four ‘bodies’ stacked behind them. They drove towards Metro Cinema square, where they fired on the unsuspecting crowd who had gathered at Metro junction. Jadhav was able to bear the acute pain of the five bullet injuries and lie motionless without a whimper for about 15 minutes, during which the terrorists zigzagged through south Mumbai. Unfamiliar with Mumbai roads, the terrorists, while crossing through the Taj Hotel, started firing on the bystanders, where national and international media had gathered to telecast the incident live. This sent a shockwave in Mumbai as the media reported that the terrorists were in a police vehicle firing indiscriminately on the crowd. During those 15 minutes, Jadhav had another close call — the cell-phone of one of the dead policemen rang and the terrorist sitting next to the driver’s seat opened fire behind him without looking. Jadhav quickly ducked behind the seat and saved himself. The vehicle stopped near Vidhan Bhavan as a punctured tyre loosened, baring the disc. The terrorists abandoned the police vehicle and left. Immediately, Jadhav picked up the wireless set and informed the police control room. Based on Jadhav’s information, a wireless message was flashed to all police vehicles and mobile vans giving details of the terrorists’ movements in a hijacked car. The terrorists stopped a Skoda car, unloaded the driver and two other occupants forcibly and sped the vehicle down Marine Drive. During their drive, Khan informed his friend that he had also sustained bullet injuries in his leg and thigh. When Kasab inquired where exactly they were heading, Khan told him that they were going to Malabar Hill. The terrorists were working on a ‘need to know basis’ and Kasab was unaware of what they would do in Malabar Hill. When Kasab further inquired, Khan told him that ‘once we reach there I will tell you’.8 Cut off from their handlers in Pakistan due to the absence of network in their mobiles, soon they entered the trap of the Mumbai Police. The result would have been different had they managed to speak to their handlers. Assistant Police Inspector Sanjay Govilkar had already finished his duty of the day at Girgaun Chowpatti but as the city was under calamitous attack, he was working extra hours during

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the transition night of 26–27 November 2008 to help his colleagues in the hour of crisis. After the tip-off from Naik Jadhav, Govilkar alerted his colleague Assistant Police Inspector Hemand Bavdhankar and all those who were present, including Constable Tukaram Omble. They thoroughly barricaded the Girgaun Chowpatty road and at 00.16 a.m. the police team saw a Skoda car coming towards them. The police knew that they were armed and they had very little protection so they took position behind the pillar of the footover-bridge and asked the occupants of the car to surrender. It was impossible to ram into the barricade and escape, so Kasab asked Khan to stop the vehicle at a little distance. Then Kasab asked him to switch on the headlights of the vehicle so that the policemen would not be able to read the car number and would not be able to recognize their faces. The police were shouting to switch off the light. Immediately Ismail Khan started spraying water on the front glass and started the wipers of the car before moving a little ahead and swinging the car fast towards the right divider. But the car could not jump the divider and was trapped there. Bavdhankar first shot three rounds at Khan, who was on the driver’s seat. Immediately Khan tried to pick up his AK-47 but as it was placed under the seat it never came out. So he picked up the pistol which was on the seat and started firing on the police. Constable Omble armed with only a lathi was the first to run towards the fidayeen terrorists who were armed with AK-47 rifles, 7.62 pistols and half a dozen hand grenades. Seeing the policemen coming to the car, Kasab also opened the door and took the AK-47 in his injured hand. The police had already started firing. Tukaram Omble tried to snatch the AK-47 from Kasab. In the skirmishes Kasab fell down on the floor but not before triggering and pumping a good number of bullets from his AK-47 into Omble’s body. Omble died on the spot. However, the precious seconds invested by Kasab to kill Omble enabled the other police officers to capture Kasab alive. Bavdhankar tied the two attackers’ hands with handkerchiefs and took them to the hospital in ambulances. The bomb planted by Kasab in the taxi exploded at Vile Parle (East). This explosion was of such a high magnitude that not only was the taxi blasted to pieces, but the bodies of the taxi driver as well as a passenger were blown up and thrown some distance away from the spot of incident. It was natural for the scarred citizens of Mumbai, who were already hearing news of multiple attacks, to feel that their city was literally in a war-like situation.

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Nariman House Attack Imran Babbar alias Abu Akasha and Nasir alias Abu Umer hugged their friends for the last time around 8.00 p.m. on 26 November at Budhwar Park. Their target was the most vital Nariman House, a fivestoried building, which had been purchased by the Chabad of India Trust, an orthodox Jewish organization, in 2006. Their destination was too close to take a taxi, hence they preferred to walk to Nariman House. The Chabad House had an educational centre, a synagogue and a hostel. The hostel was one of the preferred houses for visiting Israeli and Jewish citizens. On the evening of 26 November, around 9.30 p.m., two strangers appeared on the ground floor of Nariman House to confirm if they had reached the right destination. The building, which is 50m inside the main street, called the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Road, is connected to the road by a narrow lane. It is situated amidst a crowded but vibrant and bustling residential area. The young guard, who was sitting idle on the ground floor just adjacent to the parking space, presumed that as the two visitors are carrying heavy baggage, they must be Jews who had come to live in the building for a few days. He guided the duo to the building and as part of his usual practice he went to the nearby building to pass his time and to talk to some of his friends. Guarding the building was in name only. The guards mostly act as receptionists as they do not carry weapons and do not guard every minute. When I visited the building three months later, this practice was continuing. The two terrorists came out of the building for a while to survey the area and then entered the building again. The guard’s life was saved by the mere coincidence that he left the building unattended for a while. Before entering the targeted building, one of the terrorists planted a 10 kg RDX-laden IED at a short distance from the nearby petrol pump and another in the staircase of the building in the parking area. Subsequently, both these IEDs exploded. The terrorists entered the building to start indiscriminate firing. Immediately, one of the neighbours called the police around 9.45 p.m. for help. Sporadic firing continued when Sandra Samuel, the nanny of the two-year-old baby of the owners of the building, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivky Gavriel, was trapped on the first floor. She ran from the kitchen to the store room to hide behind the fridge. The 29-year-old

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Rabbi Gavriel and 28-year-old Rivky had married in 2002 in New York and, abandoning their comfortable life, they moved to Mumbai a year after their marriage to serve as Chabad emissaries. The couple were captured by the terrorists on the second floor and the Rabbi was forced to call the Israeli consulate. ‘The situation is not good . . .’ he is reported to have said. Then the line went dead. Chabad leaders tried dialling the Rabbi’s phones repeatedly but were not able to get through. Finally, the Chabad Crisis Centre got through to someone who picked up the phone and identified himself as an Urdu speaker. He was immediately connected to Rabbi Levi Shemtov, a Chabad emissary in Washington. Shemtov called P.V. Viswanath, a religious Jew and Indian who is a Professor of Finance in the Lubin School of Business at Pace University in New York. At around midnight, Shemtov succeeded in getting both Viswanath and the terrorist on a conference call. It was difficult for the two to understand what the terrorist wanted. Imran spoke in a low voice and his responses were uninformative. ‘Put us in touch with the Indian government and we will let the hostages go’, said the terrorist. By the time Shemtov and Viswanath found an Indian police officer ready to join the call, the connection was lost. The final call took place at 5.30 a.m. on 27 November 2008 and they were not able to get in touch with him again. The night passed without much success. Meanwhile, news of attacks on other places was already running on electronic media.

Official Imbroglio At the time of the attacks the top brass of the Mumbai Police were making their way to the Hotel Oberoi Trident to attend a wedding. Almost around the same time, there was another high-level meeting in which ATS Chief Hemant Karkare, Director General of Police (DG) A. N. Roy and Home Minister of the state R. R. Patil were discussing the sensitive Malegaon blast investigation. Around 21.00 hrs, they called it a day. Karkare called up home to say that he would be back in time for dinner, while Roy left to pick up his wife for the Trident wedding. While they were on their way to the hotel, Roy got a call from a friend at the Masala Kraft restaurant in the Taj Hotel, saying that there was firing outside. The DG immediately alerted DCP (Zone I) Vishwas Nagre Patil to reach the spot and take control as it could be a gang war. The friend again called up, and this time the DG could hear the continuous burst of fire on the phone. Roy decided to give

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up the plan to go to the wedding and returned to headquarters. Here, all top state officials were watching the action on TV in his room, along with Home Minister R. R. Patil. Roy called up the Mumbai Police Commissioner’s control room, only to find that Joint Commissioner (Crime) Rakesh Maria was handling operations and Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor was not there. By now, reports of firing were pouring in from CST station, Cama Hospital, Taj Hotel, Nariman House, and the Trident Hotel. As Hasan Gafoor had parked himself inside his car outside the Trident Hotel, the command and control of Mumbai police response had collapsed. Few were ready to take orders from Maria and Roy. The city and the country paid heavily for the division of authority between the Mumbai Police Commissioner and the DG. The two posts for the past decade had a separate police communication network, budget and operational control. Even the annual confidential report of the Mumbai Police Commissioner was written by State Additional Chief Secretary and not by the state DG. The decision to withdraw AK-47 assault rifles from police inspectors taken by Roy as Mumbai police commissioner three years before proved disastrous. All that the Mumbai Police had in response to the terrorists’ weapons were vintage assault fire and grenades from World War II, .303 Lee Enfield rifles, .38 bore revolvers, 9 mm pistols, and lathis. Ashok Kamte, as a senior police officer, had got an AK-47 issued from the police armoury that very day. It was around midnight that Maria and Roy realized the situation had gone out of control. Maharashtra chief secretary Johny Joseph was requested to seek commandos and the NSG for help. The first to be called for commando help was Mumbai Sub-Area Commander Major General R. K. Hooda, who in turn informed the Maharashtra government that he did not have any army commandos with him. So the force that arrived in the early hours of 27 November to storm the attack sides were only army foot soldiers and not crack troops. Mumbai Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was in Kerala. He was briefed about the attacks on the city’s prime locations and by the time he grasped the enormity of the situation, 90 minutes had already passed. He rang Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil at 11.00 p.m. and asked for NSG commandos. ‘How many men?’ Patil asked. ‘200’, said the CM. Patil called Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta and told him to make all the necessary arrangements to send 200 battle-ready NSG commandos to Mumbai. Joseph also called

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up Western Naval Commander J. S. Bedi for marine commandos. It took another two hours for the Marine Commandos, known as MARCOS, to reach the crime site, from their base just off the coast of Mumbai but they refused to enter the Taj Hotel without a written order. The matter was soon sorted out after an SOS from a desperate Maharashtra government to Vice-Admiral J. S. Bedi of the Western Naval Command, and the 45 members of MARCOS divided into two teams rushed to the crime scene. After being briefed by both the union home minister and chief secretary of Maharashtra, at around 11.45 p.m. on 26 November, union home secretary Madhukar Gupta called the NSG Director General J. K. Dutt, asking him to mobilize his troops. In New Delhi, at around 00.30 a.m. on 27 November, the NSG complex at Manesar near New Delhi suddenly sprung into action. Lt. Col. R. K. Sharma was roaming around his residence with visible uneasiness as the news of the terrorist strike in Mumbai dominated 24×7 news channels. He received a call asking him to report to the office pronto. Lt. Col. Sharma, a Gurkha Rifles officer on deputation to the NSG’s 51st Special Action Group (SAG), knew what the call meant. It was a call to arms and in the next 30 minutes — the time allotted to the SAG to fully mobilize — he would be on the move. Like Lt. Col. Sharma, scores of other officers were also receiving similar calls across the sprawling NSG complex in Manesar. Most of the NSG men had to be roused from sleep. They donned their uniforms, strapped on safety gear, collected ammo and firearms to rush to Mumbai. The 51 SAG, specialists in building intervention operations, is a mixed lot of fighting men drawn from diverse arms of the Indian army. In command was Special Forces officer Col. Sunil Sheoran, twice decorated with gallantry awards. Suddenly, the logistics department of NSG noticed a problem. It was discovered that the only plane that could take 200 men, the IL-76, was not in Delhi but in Chandigarh. Precious minutes were ticking by. The IL-76 pilot was woken up, the plane refuelled in Chandigarh and it reached Delhi at 2.00 a.m. on 27 November. At 2.30 a.m., Palam Technical Area of New Delhi was cordoned off and entry and exit was restricted to NSG only. By 2.45 a.m., 200 officers and men of the 51 SAG had gathered at the technical area adjoining Delhi airport. The IL-76 from RAW’s aviation research centre, just reached from Chandigarh, was warming up on the tarmac.

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By the time the commandos got in and the plane took off, fourand-a-half hours had elapsed. It is common knowledge that unless a response is mounted within 30 minutes of an attack, the enemy can assume key defensive positions. It took the aircraft almost three hours to land at Mumbai airport. Unlike the Boeing and Airbus, the IL-76 is a slow plane. The plane landed in Mumbai at 5.15 a.m. By the time the NSG commandos boarded the waiting buses it was 5.25 a.m. The commandos quickly got into the vehicles waiting on the tarmac — trucks, BEST buses, jeeps — just about anything the Mumbai Police had managed to lay their hands on that morning. The buses reached the Mumbai Police control room at 6.09 a.m., from where they all were sent to the designated places in South Mumbai.9 By the time they started their operation, it was 7.00 a.m. on 27 November. The federal commandos reached the attack site nine-and-a-half hours after the terror strike. When the NSG took over the operation, the MARCOS refused to function under the NSG brigadier.

Rescue Operation Coming back to Nariman House, Sandra Samuel had been on the first floor when the terrorists stormed in. She barricaded herself in a storage closet together with another employee until the morning of 27 November, when there was a lull in the shootings. It was only then that she heard little Moshe, the son of the Jewish couple, crying. Instead of running out to save herself, she went upstairs for Moshe. Sandra grabbed him, and ran out along with the other employee. The boy was unharmed but wearing bloodstained pants. As the day wore on, friends of the Jewish community around the world continued to hold out for good news, hoping beyond hope. Synagogues held special emergency prayer services, and countless individuals recited Psalms. Little information was available. News reports were conflicting at times with much of the news coming from blogs and tweets from the streets of Mumbai. Officials in New York and Israel grew increasingly concerned with each passing hour. Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg and his wife Yehudit, Rivky’s parents, departed from Israel to India, along with members of the Zaka organization, a humanitarian set-up that coordinates responses during tragic incidents in Israel. Meanwhile, beginning early morning, 27 November, the NSG commandos began a full-fledged assault on Nariman House. The

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house was not accessible to outsiders so no one had any knowledge of the layout inside. Sniper detachments were positioned on the surrounding buildings, and the command base was set up near an underconstruction building, which provided the vantage point to bring down observed fire on Nariman House. The terrorists had broken the window panes of the house whose glass lay strewn on the ground, to know if any commando was walking inside the house. The terrorists had blasted the inner staircase as well, which connected the floors. A former official in Israel’s famed anti-terror agency Shin Bet said that Indian security forces were premature in storming the besieged buildings. Rather than sanitizing the area and collecting as much intelligence as possible the forces showed up at the scene and immediately began exchanging fire with the terrorists, instead of first taking control of the area.10 Meanwhile, in the midst of the NSG action, using the cell phone of the Rabbi, Imran rang up India TV news channel and spoke at length about why he and his colleagues had carried out the strikes in Mumbai. He gave an impression that there were a number of terrorists along with him who were inside the building. Imran said they were from Deccan Mujahideen. The terrorists were tutored to talk about Malegaon, Ahmadabad, the Gujarat riots and the Sachar Committee report.11 Mumbai Police intercepted the telephone conversation of the terrorists. The terrorists were constantly connected with their handlers from the Pakistani port city Karachi. Their talks provide us with a peek into the minds and motives as well as involvement of specialized agencies in Pakistan. The handlers called from Pakistan and asked the terrorists to continue the operation until the morning of 27 November.12 On 27 November, before the arrival of the NSG, the terrorists were informed by their handlers that they would be informed about whatever the handlers could see on live television. The handlers asked the terrorists to block the entry of the commandos from below by standing at the stairs. The maid, while escaping with baby Moshe, said that the terrorists had moved over to the adjacent Merchant House. At one time, locals had speculated on the possibility of six terrorists, including a female, being present inside. Owing to such mixed input, the clearance of all neighbouring buildings became a necessity and operations commenced on the intervening night of 27/28 November. The signal intercept provided by the Mumbai Police revealed that the terrorists

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had shot two female hostages. The force was divided into an assault group, which slithered down from the helicopter at 7.15 a.m. on 28 November, while the support element brought down observed fire on the building. Seventeen commandos had abseiled onto the roof of Nariman House, while snipers peppered the building with covering fire. The crowds grew around Nariman House, jostling for a glimpse. And people around the world were glued to their televisions and computers, which streamed live video from outside the house. As of 10.30 a.m. on 28 November, the NSG was in control of the upper two floors of the building and working their way downward. Numerous shots and apparent grenade explosions rang out throughout the day. The NSG snipers and storm troopers restricted the movement of the terrorists inside the building and cornered them at one place. The NSG was taking time to exhaust the terrorists inside the building. After long hours of fighting the terrorists got exhausted. At times they developed suspicion about jihad and heaven after death. Imran informed his handlers that, ‘Umer is feeling fatigue’. Their handlers tried to motivate them but the young terrorists started suspecting their handlers. They undressed Rivky, who was five months pregnant, and tried to rape her. Photographs taken by a police forensic team reveal that the Rabbi and his wife were sexually assaulted and their genitalia mutilated.13 The fourth and fifth floors were cleared and contact was established with the terrorists at 2.00 p.m. on 28 November on the fourth floor. It was at this moment that Havildar Gajender Singh, while attempting to break into the room from the front door, was fired upon by the two terrorists from divergent locations inside the room. After this attempt, another entry point was created using an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) by the NSG. The terrorists ran out of ammunition while the assault from the NSG was intensifying. When the terrorists informed their handlers that they had almost run out of their bullets and grenades, they were advised to offer Namaz before their death. They requested their handlers if they could delay fire. The answer was a strict denial, ‘No, no, if you see any movement then just fire’.14 After that the voices from Nariman House were silenced forever. Coordinated fire was brought down from two sides, i.e., the front door and the broken wall, while the commandos moved into the room and neutralized both the terrorists. The mission was completed by 4.25 p.m. on 28 November.

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Taj Hotel Attacks Javed alias Abu Ali and Hafiz Arshad alias Abdul Rehman Bada left Budhwar Park and reached the Gateway of India. Before parting ways with their friends they told Nazir and Sohaib that they must finish their Leopold Café job soon and join them at the Taj Hotel before anybody could get hold of them. It was around 9.45 p.m. on 26 November that two persons with rucksacks came to the gate of the hotel before entering and opening indiscriminate fire. The iconic Taj Hotel was commissioned in Indo-Saracenic style with 565 rooms. It first opened its doors to guests on 16 December 1903. Legend has it that its owner, a Parsi industrialist called Jamsedji Nusserwanji Tata, commissioned the building after being refused entry to the now-defunct Watson’s Hotel in Mumbai, which had a strict Whitesonly policy. There is another story about the building of the hotel. In response to a plea by the editor of The Times of India for a decent hotel worthy of the city, Tata came forward to say that the idea ‘had long been simmering in my mind’ and that his ‘sole wish was to attract people to India, and incidentally to improve Bombay’.15 Surprisingly, the iconic hotel, which looks like a heritage building, bears no signboard or writing on its wall. The very structure of the hotel itself is an identity. The hotel has two wings – the heritage wing, constructed in 1903 and the tower wing constructed in the 1970s. The location of the Taj Hotel is captivating because the Arabian Sea and the Gateway of India stand just in front of it. But the Gateway of India was built after the construction of the Taj Hotel to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Bombay in 1911 nearly eight years after the construction of the Taj Hotel started. For any serious foreign investor, businessman or wealthy tourist visiting India’s commercial capital, ‘The Taj’, as it is universally known by the cognoscenti, is always the first choice. The hotel offers a world of secluded luxury, away from the grinding poverty and infrastructural decay of Mumbai. On that evening, 35-year-old Inspector Niten Kakde was part of the small police team that first entered the Taj Hotel. Kakde was about to leave for home after his duty at Colaba police station when he heard the sound of ‘crackers’ at around 9.40 p.m.16 When he called his senior at the police station, he was informed about the firing at the nearby Leopold Café. When they reached the café, firing was over and they rescued the terrified people hiding there. Then the police officers went

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to the main entrance of the Taj Hotel. A taxi driver alerted them about two suspicious people sitting under a nearby tree. When they went to check, they found a live RDX bomb in a bag, which had to be defused. They entered the lobby of the hotel and in Shamiana, the coffee shop on the ground floor, they found two injured foreigners. There were terrified people hiding in the shops, in cupboards, and many were injured. Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone 1) Vishwas Nagre Patil entered the hotel and was informed by the hotel general manager that the terrorists were trying to break into rooms on the sixth floor. The State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) platoon had also arrived by then. The hotel security staff led the small team of 12 policemen to the CCTV room on the second floor. It was on the CCTV that the police team had their first glimpse of the terrorists. The 12 policemen were split into two teams and fired at the terrorists with their 9 mm pistols with 10 rounds. A deafening explosion set off by two of the terrorists caused the false ceiling in the CCTV room to come crashing down. The terrorists set fire to bed sheets and flung them around, setting ablaze the inside of the hotel with its old wooden furniture and carpeting. The lights went off suddenly and the policemen were covered in a fog of smoke and darkness. Grenade explosions and gunfire lit up the darkness. The terrorists were coached adequately to destroy the second floor, where all the security apparatus of the hotel situated. This was the specific instruction the Taj Hotel terrorists had received from their handlers to prolong their fight. A closer analysis of the Taj Hotel gives us the reason why the battle with the terrorists was prolonged for 60 long hours. Within the first hour of the firing at the Leopold Café, the small group of armed policemen who had pursued the four attackers inside the Taj Hotel were presented with 12 golden minutes to restrict, if not eliminate them as they were holed up inside a room for that duration. Another, much bigger opportunity came after midnight when the four terrorists took refuge in a room for nearly two long hours and the Mumbai police had about 120 armed men to take them on. As the attack was carried out by a small armed group of terrorists, the police could have restricted their activities and ended the fight within the first few hours of the attacks. The CCTV footage, accessed by this author, shows that during both the above mentioned occasions, the police squandered their chance waiting for commandos to arrive from New Delhi.

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Unable to fight the terrorists, Nagre Patil and his team moved to the security control room of the hotel on the second floor, where the Taj Hotel security men were monitoring the unfolding horror through CCTV cameras. Over the next four hours, this nondescript room would witness the shocking unpreparedness of the Mumbai police to take on the attackers whose numbers had doubled as Shoaib and Umer teamed up with Abdul Rehman Bada and Abu Ali, who had entered the hotel from the main entrance nearly 25 minutes before them. CCTV footage from inside the hotel shows the four terrorists gathering first inside Room 551 of the heritage wing for 12 minutes and later in Room 632 for nearly two hours with minor interruptions in between. On both occasions, Nagre Patil and his team got this information instantly from the hotel’s security staff. As soon as they noticed the movements of the attackers at 10.27 p.m., the Taj Hotel security staff asked Nagre Patil to seize the opportunity and block the terrorists in that room. Strangely, Nagre Patil is understood to have said that Special Forces were on their way and would take over the task. The opportunity was wasted because of the sheer fear of the policemen, who were scared to get killed. They had developed a strange fear of the terrorists, who were smaller in numbers but had superior arms and ammunitions. The transcript recorded in detail in the Mumbai Police main control room’s log book provides us a glimpse of the poor functioning of the Mumbai police. At 10.35 p.m. on 26 November, Nagre Patil’s team sent wireless message with code name Zone 1. The message read as ‘Zone 1 (DCP Patil’s team): Sir has gone inside the Taj. He needs help, send help immediately’. The information was taken well and the response came from South District Control room. ‘South (District) Control: Yellow Gate 1 and Shivdi 2 . . . your constables will go inside the Taj with arms. Azad Maidan 1, your constables will come forward’. Despite the orders, the team didn’t move inside even as DCP Nagre Patil was watching the movement of the terrorists from the CCTV room. When no help came, Patil again asked for reinforcements. By this time, one-and-half hours had already passed and the terrorists had nearly consolidated their positions. At 11.53 p.m., Nagre Patil again called for reinforcement, ‘Zone 1 to South (District) Control: More reinforcement needed at Taj’. The response was ‘South (District) Control: Noted’. When help finally arrived, the assault team didn’t know where to go — to the Taj Heritage wing or to the adjacent Tower wing. The assault team which was sent to the Taj Hotel was

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awaiting orders and instructions on how to carry out the operation. They sought order, ‘Assault 3 to South Control: We need to know the location of Zone 1’. Nagre Patil’s wireless responded, ‘Zone 1: He is on the second floor of the Taj with four people’. ‘Assault 3: New Taj or old Taj?’ ‘Zone 1: New Taj second floor’. The assault team got the answer when finally it said ‘Assault 3: Noted’. But for 8 minutes, confusion over whether it was the new Taj or the old Taj continued. Then again the same request was made, ‘Assault 3: Where do we go? New Taj or old Taj?’ This time South Control responded, ‘South Control: New Taj, go there immediately’. At this point DCP Patil intervened. ‘Zone 1: Old building, old building’. The confused assault team again sought clarification, ‘Assault team: But earlier you said new building’. Nagre Patil said, ‘Zone 1 to assault mobile: New building’s lobby is safe. Terrorists are in the old building... We, 3–4 people, are in the CCTV control room. We must surround the sixth floor. We have shut down both elevators... we have to guard the staircase now. If we work like this, we can capture them... over’. DCP Patil then informed Hasan Gafoor that the terrorists were in room number 631 and had captured four hotel staff members. By then the terrorists were informed by their handlers that they would not be able to destroy the second floor security room adequately and they were being watched by the CCTV. The handlers then asked the terrorists to destroy the CCTV cameras one-by-one to black out their movements. Nagre Patil again informed Gafoor that the terrorists were firing at CCTV cameras and that they needed help immediately. ‘Zone 1 to Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime): We are in the CCTV room at the third floor of Taj hotel. Terrorists are in room number 631. They came to the fifth floor also. We fired at them so they went back to the sixth. I have 3–4 people with me. DCP Rajwardhan is also here. Please send assault teams’. The response from Rakesh Maria, JCP, Crime came, ‘Crime: Well done Vishwas (Patil). I am sending assault teams to you. Army columns are also coming. They will surround the hotel. I will send either assault teams or the Quick Reaction Team (QRT) to you’. Three hours elapsed after this assurance, no team entered the Taj Hotel. Only Nagre Patil and his team of 12 police personnel were inside, trapped between the terrorists and his superior officers who were wasting every opportunity and providing maximum support, wittingly or unwittingly, to the terrorists. At 00.52 a.m. of 27 November, Gafoor found time to

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send orders to Nagre Patil. The message said, ‘King (code name for Gafoor) to Zone 1: The naval commandos should be there in a few minutes. Keep them pinned down. Over’. Gafoor was not ignorant of the fact that no team had entered the hotel except that of Nagre Patil. What Gafoor never explained was how to pin the terrorists down. Not only this, the navy commandos also hadn’t arrived after another hour. It was around 2.08 a.m. that a message came about the arrival of the army. The message was released to Gafoor, ‘Peter Colaba to Control: I can see an army jeep coming here’. Nagre Patil intervened and said, ‘Zone 1 to Peter Colaba: Take them straight to the 6th floor through north code. You will have to assault... We will also come out at the same time’. Rakesh Maria had also some instructions to give, ‘Crime: Peter Colaba, the army columns are there to surround the hotel. But in the next 2–3 minutes, navy commandos will come’. The navy team reached them at 2.30 a.m. and Nagre Patil suggested a joint operation with the Navy commandos but Gafoor said no. ‘King to Zone 1: Don’t begin the operation with two agencies... Don’t do it with their and our commandos... The training is different. This will not be right’. But he did not say what was right. Because of a mere technicality, the two agencies were never used. Two agencies never worked together — that was what the head of Mumbai Police thought and ordered. The police team never realized that the time required for the Special Forces could be utilized by the terrorists to consolidate their position and kill as many guests as possible. Nagre Patil, who continued to remain in the hotel security control room, was once again informed by security staff as soon as the four terrorists entered Room 632. This time, the DCP informed senior officers over the wireless and also sought more policemen. But according to Control Room transcripts of the wireless conversations, Hassan Gafoor told Nagre Patil to wait for backup. A leading daily contacted Gafoor and sought his reaction on his unprofessional and uninspired leadership. Gafoor said, ‘There was no question of asking anyone to flee or not engage the terrorists. Nagre Patil displayed exemplary courage. He told me, “Sir, I will do or die”, and I told him not to contemplate such things as the army was on its way. Two constables with him had died, and he was lucky to have survived’.17 Strangely, the Mumbai Police Commissioner wanted his men to be idle and save their own lives at the cost of the guests, citizens and the country. A little daring by the Mumbai Police would have spared the city of its worst ever terror tale.

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The backup, in the form of the Maharashtra ATS, QRT, ‘striking mobiles’ and ‘assault mobiles’, were already at the hotel. In fact, three ‘striking mobiles’ with 18 armed policemen each, three ‘assault mobiles’ with five men each, six police station mobiles with a minimum of four men each, as well as a Quick Response Team armed with AK-47 assault rifles — a total of about 120 armed policemen — were on the ground floor of the hotel, awaiting orders to proceed to higher floors. But the Mumbai Police Commissioner had no faith in such a huge force he had assembled in front of the hotel, giving an impression to the nation that the situation was nothing less than war-like. The forces and gun-toting policemen surrounded the hotel, moving waywardly helter and skelter, only to rescue the escaping guests and nothing more. The armoured security personnel taking ground with weapons pointed towards the various corner of the hotels was only to deceive the country through the media that they were at a battlefront. In reality, they had no role whatsoever to play in the rescue operation or fighting the terrorists. This was because the control room already had the knowledge about the number of terrorists inside the hotel and their whereabouts. Under no circumstance were they trying to escape the hotel rendering the deployment of the heavy force outside the Taj Hotel useless. The operations to storm the hotel began in earnest much after the Marine Commandos arrived at 2.10 a.m. on 27 November but even they could not go beyond the ground floor. They were followed by the NSG at around 8.00 a.m. and operations were launched only at 9.30 a.m. While it is easy to place all the blame on Gafoor for the Taj Hotel debacle, he also had complaints about his own force. After the attacks, in a scathing remark to his force, Gafoor accused some senior police officers of refusing to take on the terrorists on the night of India’s worst terrorist attacks.18 Transcripts of conversations between senior police officers during the first five hours of the attacks bring out two things. First, there was confusion from top down about how to tackle the terrorist strike. Second, and more crucially, some officers and their men on duty didn’t want to face the terrorists. They were either scared or they did not want to go into operation without the support of additional forces. Before the arrival of the NSG, there was complete chaos prevailing at all the crime scenes including the Taj Hotel. A desperate Maharashtra government requested the army but the army commandos never

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arrived, for unknown reasons. The nearest and surest force, which could get there soon, was the MARCOS. The MARCOS, who dress like terrorists, wear long beards, move about like militants, and even tote AK-47 assault rifles follow in letter and spirit the adage of the counter-insurgency doctrine: fight an insurgent like an insurgent. They were created in the 1980s out of naval divers to lead amphibious operations and clear beaches for the main body of troops. Being divers, they could reach hostile shores swimming underwater. They could sabotage enemy vessels and harbour installations. These diving commandos were deployed in Kashmir against militants who were using water bodies such as lakes, rivers and ravines to take cover. Soon they became famous as the ‘dareewali fauj (bearded force)’ among the militants. But at the Mumbai attacks sites, the MARCOS received little intelligence support and were handicapped by their own limitations to act at a hostage crisis. From 2.00 a.m., until the NSG arrived and took over, the navy commandos held ground and tried to isolate the terrorists. A MARCOS leader dressed in black commando uniform with a covered face appeared before the media waiting outside to talk about the inside scene. Their leader said that the team faced a problem in dealing with the terrorists inside the hotel as they did not know much about the building and had to take the help of the hotel staff to operate there. The team could not even get access to the CCTV monitoring room because it was full of smoke and the terrorists were also continuing with their fire. Giving an account of the commando raid at the Taj Hotel, the MARCOS leader claimed that his team saw about 50 dead bodies scattered through the hotel during the flush-out operation. Contrary to this the four terrorists knew each stair well and all its multiple entries and exits. The marine commandos were groping in the dark for hours as their further march was restricted by the terrorists’ careful grenade attacks and tactical precision inputs via the phone from their handlers in Pakistan, who were constantly covering the event through the live telecast by electronic media. The terrorists were very much in control of the Taj Hotel when on 27 November the MARCOS claimed that the operation was almost over. The MARCOS made it officially known that they had killed two terrorists at the Taj Hotel complex between 4.00–4.30 a.m. This information was totally false and it is still not clear whether the MARCOS engaged the enemy directly on that day or not.

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The NSG found the layout of the hotel and started their operation. The time needed to break, open, enter and conduct a quick search of one room was 4–5 minutes. For the 500 rooms, the time required ranged from 33 to 40 hours. Considering the huge area of operations, ensuring the safety of guests had been making their task difficult. The Taj Hotel building walls were made of thick granite, which nullified the effectiveness of rocket fire, hence those were not used. The hotel had only one master key, hence doors had to be broken to enter which was time consuming again. The commandos had to break down doors with their fingers on the trigger, hoping to meet scared guests but ready for terrorists, just in case. The effort became tougher since the master electronic key to the hotel rooms was not functioning. The shockwaves from the grenade blasts had rendered the master key useless so they just had to crack the doors down. Also, there was not adequate ambient light inside the rooms and the curtains were drawn from inside, enabling the inmate to hide behind the curtains. The occupants were too scared and never identified themselves or opened the doors upon knocking or calling. Some occupants had ventured out of their rooms earlier and were shot by the terrorists, word of this incident had spread quickly and the hotel staff had advised the guests to shut themselves inside their rooms, which complicated the NSG’s rescue operation. At 9.20 a.m. on 27 November, the NSG took over operations from the MARCOS. Taj Chambers and the restaurants were cleared and secured. The ground floor was secured and the operation base was set up there. Top-down operations were launched by approaching the terrace from the service stairs. Inputs had suggested that two terrorists were present inside the Taj Hotel. The NSG sent in two teams, one under Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan and another under Major Kanwal. Major Unnikrishnan, who was martyred while saving the life of his buddy, was a real hero and warrior. Thirty-one-yearold Major Unnikrishnan was the only son of retired Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) officer K. Unnikrishnan. He joined the National Defence Academy (NDA) and was commissioned in the 7th Bihar Regiment in 1999. The SAG teams began to push the terrorists back through a connecting corridor to the Taj Hotel while guests were moved out from all possible exits. By 10.00 a.m. on 27 November, a fresh plane load of commandos had taken off from Palam as reinforcements for the Mumbai operation.

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Col. Sheoran, who had tactical command of the operations at the Taj Hotel, was getting worried. While earlier estimates had indicated two terrorists, his men reported four. Some of the terrorists were using a ladder between the restaurant on the top and a bar below to keep switching between floors. Col. Sheoran along with his men homed in on their position and began to pin them down. As the operation was getting lengthier most of the radio batteries of the Special Forces had gone dead. The commandos had to fall back on a bit of ingenuity to solve the hiccups. They communicated with each other using sign language and ‘play acting’. At other times, some would run down all 21 floors to get ready-to-eat meals, or replace the depleting batteries for their radio transmission (RT) sets. The commandos became so good at hand signals that they were planning to team up with another Colonel (B. S. Rathee, who was the operational head of Oberoi Trident) for a dumb charades team. Throughout the night of 28 November, the battle for the Taj Hotel continued. The terrorists were firing while playing hide and seek with the security forces. The terrorists would continuously run between floors and the commandos kept chasing them. Contact was established with the terrorists on the first floor during floor clearance. NSG commando Havildar Sunil Kumar Yadav, who was on the second floor with Major Unnikrishnan, was one of the first few to face the terrorists. Yadav spent nine hours searching for the militants before he received a bullet injury from a terrorist. With his elite commando squad, working in pairs, he had cleared three floors of the hotel, escorting frightened guests to the fire escape through dark and smoke-filled corridors, when they came to a door which would not open with a master key. He thought he had heard noises from Room 271, which didn’t sound like they were coming from civilians. Major Unnikrishnan kicked down the door and threw a grenade. The door opened, a silhouette with a gun appeared, opened fire and retreated into the room. Three bullets hit Yadav and he was escorted by Major Unnikrishnan to safety. While rescuing his colleague, one of the terrorists lobbed a hand grenade on them as a result of which Major Unnikrishnan was detached from his team. He had a tiny radio in his ear and could contact his officers but to establish contact with his teammates (the commandos work in batches) he had to call out. The minute he did that, he gave his position away. A terrorist was lurking close by and it didn’t take him a minute to spot the major. Instead of coming down, Major Unnikrishnan went up from

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where the terrorists were firing. He went up and returned fire. He also warned the party, which was coming in for his rescue, fearing that they would be caught in the crossfire. It was during this time that a bullet hit Major Unnikrishnan’s neck and he became unconscious. His other colleagues could not reach where Major Unnikrishnan was fighting the terrorists. Profuse bleeding took the life of one of the most daring commandos of the NSG. Eventually, the four terrorists were cornered at the Wasabi restaurant on the first floor. Due to the wooden spiral staircases and granite walls of the bar, they were immune to NSG fire. The final assault began early on 29 November. IEDs were used to blast open entry into the restaurant. Due to the blast effect and shock waves of the IEDs, one terrorist jumped out of the window and was shot dead by the commandos. The rest died inside the restaurant. Nearly 61 hours after the first shot had been fired by the terrorists, the operation was finally over and the commandos had won back the Taj Hotel, inch by inch.

Oberoi/Trident Attacks At Budhwar Park, the dinghy dropped eight of the 10 terrorists along with their belongings and sailed off without wasting time. The remaining two militants, Fahadullah and Abdul Rehman Chhota alias Sakib, powered the boat towards Cuffe Parade. They were told by their instructor that the 22 floor Oberoi Trident Hotel was visible from Cuffe Parade beach and they would not face difficulty in locating their target. They got off at the cemented boulders near the Oberoi Trident Hotel at Marine Drive, around a kilometre away from Budhwar Park. Then they crossed the road and reached the gate of the Oberoi Trident Hotel. The abandoned boat left at Marine Drive was propelled by the air and waves towards Cuffe Parade, where it was later recovered by the Mumbai Police. Fahadullah and Abdul Rehman Chhota, before entering the hotel, planted a 10 kg RDX-laden IED on the slope of the flower bed adjacent to the Trident Hotel’s main entrance gate. The idea was to divert the attention of the hotel’s security staff at the entrance when they entered the hotel. The bomb detection and disposal squad got information about the bomb and placed a ‘bomb blanket’ on the IED, which minimized the damage. Immediately after entering the hotel, the terrorists commenced firing from their AK-47 rifles and lobbed hand grenades. The initial blitzkrieg attacks of the terrorists

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resulted in heavy casualties at the bell desk, reception counter, lobby and Tiffin Restaurant. They also planted another 10 kg RDX-laden IED near the Tiffin Restaurant, which subsequently exploded. As per the strategy adopted by the terrorists, they took hostages from the Kandahar Restaurant and went to the higher floors. The elegant Trident Hotel, comprising a total of 337 rooms spread across 22 floors, is situated in the heart of the business district overlooking the Arabian Sea. There was no resistance inside the hotel; the terrorists fired bullets towards whatever came their way and they made their entry into the various floors of the hotel. Some 20 French nationals and an Air France crew were trapped inside the hotel. All of them were too terrified to move. By the time the Mumbai Police reached the hotel, the terrorists had already taken position on the higher floors and from this vantage location they held the security forces at bay by firing intermittently from their AK-47s and hurling hand grenades. At 2.00 a.m., the MARCOS entered the hotel. The terrorists, during the entire siege period, were in constant phone contact with their Pakistani handlers to receive operational and motivational inputs. They also contacted a TV channel and provided them with misleading information. The conversations of the terrorists with their handlers in Karachi tell us what the situation inside the hotel was. At 3.53 a.m. on 27 November, the terrorists called their contacts in Pakistan, who informed them how the media was comparing the event with the 9/11 attacks. He also informed them that senior police officials had been killed by their collective assault. The terrorists replied that they were on the 10th and 11th floors of the hotel with five hostages. The instruction for the terrorists was straight — inflict the maximum damage, ‘don’t be taken alive’ and ‘kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire’. The terrorists had informed that they had three foreigners, including women from Singapore and China. Immediately instruction came: ‘Kill them’. Fahadullah contacted India TV and informed them that he was one of seven attackers inside the hotel, and their demand was to free Islamist militants from Indian jails. The NSG commandos arrived at the Trident Oberoi Hotel around 8.00 a.m. on 27 November and quickly swung into action. Major Bharat Singh was asked to take in one team of 25 men into the hotel

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while Lt. Col. Sharma was asked to lead another team. Both were under the tactical command of Col. B. S. Rathee, Deputy Force Commander of the SAG contingent. The commandos got the maps of the building from the hotel staff and moved in from the fire exits and climbed up to the 21st floor. The Oberoi tower is an 11-floor building with 33 rooms on each floor. The building has three interlinking corridors with the Trident building which houses 22 floors. Not sure about where the terrorists were holed up, the commandos took the ‘top-to-bottom’ approach for a dominating view and a better field of fire — critical in a close quarters battle. Armed with their German Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine guns, the NSG men began a room-by-room search of the Oberoi Trident. The commandos combing the rooms made first contact with the terrorists on the 18th floor. There was a barrage of automatic gunfire. The commandos quickly fanned out and returned fire. As the battle raged, the terrorists backed into Room 1856 and kept up a steady fire to keep the SAG men at bay. Col. Rathee slipped into the adjoining room under intense fire to set up a tactical command centre. At times the commandos would fire up their HHTI to locate the terrorists. It worked at times, and at times it didn’t. The commandos kept firing and threw in a few grenades. But finally they figured out that the terrorists were hiding in the bathtub. The terrorists returned fire and injured Major Saurav Shah. Major Saurav went on the RT saying that he was bleeding and losing consciousness. He was evacuated immediately. Another bullet whizzed past Major Bharat, taking off a bit of his left ear. The terrorists exchanged abuses with the commandos. Unlike the Taj Hotel, the two terrorists at the Oberoi Trident were not proactive and after the initial shooting of guests, they remained silent in a room for most of the time. They opened fire only once to change their position and on another occasion when they were fired upon by the commandos. They remained fixed in room number 1856, which was opened by the commandos using a master key. One terrorist was killed while escaping near the lift on the corridor, while the other hid himself inside the bathroom. Later, it was ascertained that he had defiladed himself by getting into the bathtub. After a bitter fight which lasted nearly 42 hours, the security forces ultimately succeeded in killing the two terrorists. As many as 35 persons, including nine foreigners, were killed and 24 guests (including five foreigners

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and four security personnel) received injuries. The Oberoi Trident Hotel was cleared by 2.00 p.m. on 28 November, and after rendering safe procedure, handed over to the civil police at 6.00 p.m. on 29 November. The LeT handlers used Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to mask their identity and the origin of their calls. As the assailants went about their macabre business, their handlers, who were monitoring coverage of the action at the two hotels and the Jewish centre, asked the terrorists to kill as many as possible and set the entire hotel afire. Talking in rustic Punjabi, the gang leaders told them, ‘Aag lagao, aag lagao’ (start a fire, start a fire). They told their wards at Nariman House to kill the Israelis and ordered them to spare Muslims in the two hotels. Contrary to their instruction about saving the lives of Muslims at the hotels, they asked Kasab and Ismail to fire indiscriminately at CST, Cama Hospital and other places, that led to the death of 39 Muslims. The telephone conversation between the terrorists and their handlers intercepted by the security agencies show how the LeT leaders remained not just calm, but even found time to engage in banter with their wards over the interview that one of them, Imran Babar, the terrorist at Nariman House, had given to an Indian news channel. The handler was happy that Babar had used some English words. When NSG commandos reached the site instructions came to the terrorists, ‘Fauj aa rahi hai, cover lo’ (Troops reaching, take cover). But they did not panic. The LeT commanders were confident that flushing out the terrorists would not be easy for the NSG commandos. Their handlers asked them to eat dates, not to get tired and take turns to sleep. One of their bosses did not seem perturbed or even concerned when he was informed by a terrorist that he was badly injured. ‘Aakhiri waqt aa gaya hai, namaaz ada karo’ (Last time has arrived, offer your last prayer), said the composed voice at the other end. Finally, the handler asked the wounded terrorist — ‘Do you have a message to give?’ The dying terrorist never responded.

Introduction Ø

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T

he National Security Guard (NSG) ended the Mumbai attacks after three days of bloody battle with the attackers. During this time a handful of terrorists tested the combined might of an entire nation. The attacks had left a traumatizing effect on the psyche of all Indians. What happened after the attacks and how did each state organ function during and after the attacks? To get an overview of the post-attacks developments, it is necessary to build up the chronology of the entire crime. The post-attacks trial and public discourse has exposed the crumbling structure of India’s legislature, executive and judiciary. Very basic questions, like who was behind the actual planning of the attacks, remained unanswered. By using the government reports, classified documents and other information available in the public domain, let us try to ascertain the culpability of the real big fishes behind the crime. Out of the 16 policemen who were killed by the 10 terrorists, along with 150 civilians including 25 foreigners, one police constable, Tukaram Omble’s martyrdom enabled the world to unravel the tale of the terror attacks. Armed with a lathi, constable Omble captured a fidayeen terrorist Ajmal Kasab, who was armed with an AK-47 rifle, a 7.62 pistol and half a dozen hand grenades. Kasab, who was earlier injured by the precision fire of senior police officers Ashok Kamte, Hemant Karkare and Vijay Salaskar at the ill-fated Cama Hospital encounter, pumped a number of bullets from his AK-47 into Omble’s body. Omble died on the spot. The capture of Kasab during the intervening night of 26–27 November 2008 heralded a long spell of drama over the next one and a half years. A photograph of Kasab wielding an assault rifle at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) became the symbolic image of the attacks. At least three CCTV cameras (two at the CST station and one at The Times of India building just outside CST) captured the

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acts of mayhem committed by Kasab and his colleague. Similar CCTV cameras at other places where the attacks took place also recorded the activities of other fidayeen terrorists. Going by the visuals, even a frail mind would not miss the intensity of the crime and the intentions of the criminals. The first political casualty of the Mumbai attacks was Union Minister of Home Affairs, Shivraj Patil, who was divested from the job to be replaced by P. Chidambaram. When Parliament sessions started on 11 December 2008, Chidambaram made a statement in the Lok Sabha informing that ‘cases have been registered and the investigations have been entrusted to the Crime Branch of the Mumbai Police’.1 He also informed the House that central government agencies had extended their full support to the Mumbai Police to conduct the investigation. The investigation started within hours of the attacks. As many as 12 FIRs were filed at various police stations in Mumbai and the final chargesheet was filed by combining all the FIRs produced before the 37th Court, Esplanade, Mumbai. Kasab was handed over to the Crime Branch on 27 November 2008 and on 28 November, when the attack was still underway, the Crime Branch produced Kasab before Magistrate N. N. Shrimangale at the 37th Esplanade Court of Mumbai. The court remanded him to police custody until 11 December 2008. Following the attacks, the provincial government and Mumbai police were supposed to file the chargesheet within 60 days. However, the deadline could not be met because sanctions from various state and central agencies to prosecute under different sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), the Explosives Substances Act, the Arms Act, the Customs Act and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) could not come within the given time. The failure of filing a chargesheet within the stipulated time merely because of bureaucratic wrangling was the first indication of what lay in store. Even such a high-profile case could not make the bureaucracy move. Things would have been different if the delay had been due to collection of intelligence reports and information about the terrorists and their handlers. A series of hearings came before the session court on various dates only to extend the custody of the captured terrorist. On 11 December 2008 the second hearing was held followed by the third one on the 24 December 2008. Subsequently, four similar hearings came before the court on 6 January, 19 January,

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2 February, and on 13 February, all in 2009, before the filing of the voluminous chargesheet on 25 February 2009.

Forensic Evidence In the aftermath of the attacks, behind the death and destruction, the terrorists had left a long trail of technological remnants. These technological devices, seized from the attack sites and from the fishing trawler MV Kuber, proved vital for the security agencies to establish the conspiracy and its root. Mumbai’s Forensic Science Laboratory experts collected DNA samples from all the places and after examination concluded that the DNA samples collected from the nine deceased terrorists and the arrested terrorist had matched with the DNA of various articles seized from MV Kuber. The terrorists had used five Global Positioning System (GPS) handsets and a satellite phone to track their waterway from Karachi to Mumbai. The dinghy was embedded with a Yamaha motor and for the purpose of communication during the attacks, each terrorist was provided with a mobile phone with an Indian SIM card. The terrorists used sophisticated communication gadgetry to remain in constant contact with their co-conspirators in Pakistan for a continuous flow of operational and motivational inputs. For communication during the carrying out of the attacks, their handlers used a US-based VoIP service.2 The terrorist masterminds in Pakistan brought all these gadgets from various US, Japan and UAE-based companies. Hence, to solve the mystery, the Mumbai Police sent a Letter Rogatory to the US Department of Justice under the ‘Treaty of Mutual Legal Assistance’ requisitioning assistance in the investigation process.3 Five GPS handsets, one satellite phone, 10 mobile phones including 10 SIM cards and a CD containing intercepted voices of the handlers were collated and sent to the FBI’s Digital Evidence Laboratory, Quantico in Virginia. The specific information sought from the FBI was related to the VoIP Numbers: details regarding the Yamaha boat; forensic analysis of the five GPS handsets; information with respect to the 10 GSM mobile phones and a report regarding a threatening email received by India TV.4 Immediately, the US provided the personal details about the people who had acquired the electronic gadgets from US companies. The FBI

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found that the handlers used a US-based telephone number from a private company called International Connection Service Incorporated (ICS) registered in Delaware, US. ICS provides Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services under the brand name Callphonex. ICS owned the telephone number used by the handlers until 6 January 2009. Every call made by Callphonex customers displays the same telephone number, regardless of where the customer is at the time of the call, unless the terminating carrier blocks the appearance of the number. The LeT obtained the Callphonex connection with a fake name. On 20 and 21 October 2008, an individual identifying himself as Kharak Singh contacted Callphonex and managed to establish an account. Singh’s account consisted of 15 ‘PC to phone’ accounts, 10 ‘common client’ accounts, and five ‘Direct Inward Dialling’ Austrian phone numbers.5 Two payments were made to Callphonex for Singh’s accounts. On 27 October 2008, the first payment was wired from Lahore by one Muhammad Ishfaq, who provided a Peshawar address as his home. The second payment was wired by one Iqbal Javaid on 25 November 2008, a day before the Mumbai attacks, from Brescia, Italy. For identification, Iqbal provided a Pakistani passport number.6 When the owner of Callphonex noticed that neither of the wire transfers was sent from India, on 25 November 2008, he emailed Singh and inquired, ‘If you are in India, why are wire transfers coming from Pakistan?’7 The question was never answered and next day Mumbai was attacked and the same phone lines were used to guide the attackers. The user abandoned the service of Callphonex on 28 November 2008, the day the Mumbai siege ended.8 With a tip-off from the FBI, Italy’s top anti-terrorist unit, the Divisione Investigazioni Generalie Operazioni Speciali Antiterrorismo (DIGOS) and the Public Prosecutor’s office in Brescia investigated the matter. Their inquiry revealed that Iqbal Javaid had never transited through Italian territory and that he was residing legally near the city of Barcelona in Spain. The persons running Madina Trading in Brescia, through which money was sent to Callphonex, had used Iqbal Javaid’s identity details and those of other subjects without their knowledge to carry out money transfer operations with the specific intention of hiding the identity of the real senders of the money. The investigation also found that from 2006 to 2008 Madina Trading used the identity of Iqbal Javaid over 300 times to send money to various countries totaling over €400,000.9 This was a scintillating piece of

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information that Pakistani terrorists were funneling money for terrorist attacks through a distant Brescia agent to all over the world. Further investigation found that the Yamaha motor used by the terrorists was manufactured in Japan and thereafter shipped to Lahore for sale. The satellite phone traced its origin to UAE. Printouts of the maps taken from the stored data of the GPS established the fact that their journey had started from Karachi and ended in Mumbai. The mobile phones (Nokia 1200), were manufactured at the Nokia factory in Dong Guan, China, and shipped to Karachi.10 The threatening email received by India TV on 27 November 2008 from a proxy email id was sent from a proxy server from Russia.11 Finally, the names and addresses of the persons who had acquired those gadgets were traced to three Pakistani cities, Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi.12 Evidence of Pakistan’s complicity in the attacks was forthcoming with each gadget. Forensic analysis proved that there was not an iota of doubt about the comprehensive involvement of Pakistan. The sponsors, perpetrators, handlers and foot soldiers of the Mumbai attacks all belonged to Pakistan.

Other Evidence Meanwhile, as already mentioned in the previous chapter, on 20 February 2009, Kasab had made his confessional statement before a judicial magistrate. This admission was admissible before the court of law as evidence. In his statement Kasab told the minutest details of the crime and role of each criminal in the crime. This further proved Pakistan’s inextricable connection with the attacks. After the compilation of all the evidence, Mumbai Police filed a voluminous 11, 280-page chargesheet on 25 February 2009. However, the chargesheet was more of a jostling exercise than any thought-out document. The Mumbai Police prepared a shoddy chargesheet despite the fact that there was a huge availability of supportive evidence against the terrorists, their perpetrators and against Pakistan’s complicity in the attacks. The entire attacks case was prepared in a lacklustre if not unprofessional manner. Even after the filing of the chargesheet, ambiguities about the attacks prevailed and many vital questions were left unanswered. Sweeping statements were made in the chargesheet. It was contended that the military precision with which all these attacks were conducted, the commando-like action and the complexity of the operation

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indicated that Pakistan had a direct hand in them. It was further said that the detailed and meticulous planning, the familiarity and dexterity in the handling of sophisticated weaponry and electronic equipment all undoubtedly and conclusively pointed to training by professionals in Pakistan.13 However, the 11, 280-page chargesheet avoids naming the individuals, professionals or any other person of authority in Pakistan who were involved in the conspiracy. In the entire chargesheet, only one paragraph is dedicated to the LeT, the organization which wreaked havoc in Mumbai and surprisingly there is no mention of either the ISI or the Pakistan army. Through the use of short and crisp sentences, the chargesheet alleged Pakistan of masterminding the attacks. The document alleged that the fidayeen attack was part of a larger criminal conspiracy planned in Pakistan for attacking the commercial capital of India with the explicit intent to wage war. However, there is no detailed background information about how the planning of the war against India was conducted and who was involved. The preceding chapters explained how the LeT acquired resources from a variety of sources including from the ISI for the Mumbai attacks, but the chargesheet made no such efforts to provide information about the route of acquiring the materials for the assault. What is far more surprising was that the Mumbai Police lawfully recorded the communication between the terrorists and their handlers. In the absence of leadership, command and presence of mind among the Mumbai Police, the conversation continued until the end of the operation, more precisely until 8.52 a.m. on 28 November. Nivruti Tukaram Kadam was an Inspector of Police attached to the ATS, Mumbai. He was looking after the technical wing of the ATS, which was assigned the tasks of collecting intelligence, phone interceptions and data analysis. He stated that the interception of these calls by him commenced at 1.04 a.m. on 27 November 2008, and the last call from one of these numbers concluded at 8.52 a.m. on 28 November 2008. The total recordings of intercepted phone calls were spread over 12 hours and 33 minutes.14 The police did not bother to jam or disrupt the conversation. Consequences and number of casualties would have been different had the police managed to terminate communication among the terrorists and their handlers. It is important to recall here how Kasab and Ismail failed to contact their handlers in Pakistan due to absence of network on their mobiles and failed to get operational command, which led to their entrapment sooner rather than later. While

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the terrorists were fed minute-by-minute details about the planning and operation of the security forces, it was extremely difficult for the NSG commandos to conduct any counter-terror operation. Contrary to this, Kasab and Ismail were blinded about what was ahead of them and what was awaiting them. Adding to the misery of the security forces, then Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil in New Delhi informed the media about when, where and how many NSG commandos were going against the terrorists.15 This was a tactical blunder which enabled the handlers of the terrorists to inform their wards about how to counteract the operation of Special Forces. The element of surprise was totally absent from the NSG operation. The terrorists were also encouraged by the fact that neither the local/provincial police nor the army/navy’s commandos managed to overpower them. Not only were the terrorists getting information about their successes, but they also gained operational commands and inspirational inputs from their handlers. All this enabled them to change their position frequently and to suitably challenge the security forces and continue the operation for many hours. Peculiarly, while the terrorists were getting all the information about their adversaries, the security forces were groping in the dark even about the exact number of terrorists holed up inside various buildings. The court documents tell us that 41 calls were made (8,834 seconds) from or to the Taj Hotel, 62 calls were recorded (15,705 seconds) from or to the Oberoi/Trident and 181 calls were intercepted (35,172 seconds) from or to Nariman House during the attacks. The terrorists were not panicked and dealt with the security forces with ease only because of their communication with their handlers. Kasab’s confession was a windfall gain for the Mumbai Police, which was used comprehensively to establish the modus operandi of the conspiracy. Exact lines were picked up from his confessional statement and the larger design of the attacks was established. This was an act of over-simplification, lacking methodology, meticulousness, conviction and tightness. Admitting the confession of an illiterate terrorist as cardinal facts and determining the larger design of the attack based on those facts was actually an oversimplification. Both the police and prosecutor adopted casual methods in preparing the case. There was a lack of meticulousness and proper methodology in producing evidence and arguments before the session court. All these made the case appear to be an ordinary criminal case rather than a case of waging war against India. The investigators lost sight of the fact

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that Kasab was a mere foot soldier while the original masterminds were in Pakistan. The Government of India had sent as many as 13 dossiers to Pakistan on the Mumbai attacks seeking action against the perpetrators of the crime. Surprisingly, in its 25 February 2010 dossier, India sought extradition of two ISI officers for their involvement in the attacks. However, the chargesheet neither mentions the names of the two ISI officers nor even the name of the ISI. No wonder Pakistan declined to own up to the evidences, citing all these as literatures and not evidences. Although, in the backdrop of Pakistan’s refusal for cooperation and in the absence of a mechanism to trace the handlers and match the voice samples recorded during the crime, the Mumbai Police confronted a new kind of circumstance where national laws were ineffective, but that does not absolve their unprofessionalism and inefficiency. Immediately after the Mumbai attacks, the provincial government appointed a high-power inquiry committee to look into the circumstances that led to the Mumbai attacks. The committee in its report conclusively proved that the Mumbai Police simply did not have the expertise, training, manpower and weaponry to deal with such a specialized terror attack. The chargesheet further said that the terrorist attack was a proxy war but failed to provide any information about the perpetrators, sponsors or owners of the proxy war. When Susanne Koelbl, the reporter of German magazine Der Spiegel, asked ISI chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha about the ISI’s involvement in the Mumbai attacks, Pasha said, ‘They (Indians) have given us nothing, no numbers, no connections, no names. This is regrettable’.16 Lt. Gen. Pasha was right as the chargesheet does not mention anything about the involvement of the ISI or the Pakistan army. The most surprising fact of all is that the answer to the question of why Mumbai was attacked was not dealt with by the prosecutor. Trivial, most over used and generic motives — such as to wrest Kashmir from India, to destabilize India, to weaken India financially and to wage a war against India — were provided as the reasons. The real motives for the Mumbai attacks remained shrouded in mystery as far as the chargesheet and prosecution’s submission was concerned and the real big fish behind the attacks was never exposed — neither by the police, nor by the prosecutor and, as we will see later, not even by the judiciary. The high-power committee on the 26/11 attacks observed in its report how red tape had held up any police modernization plans

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as well as purchase of arms and ammunition for the Maharashtra police, which was a dire necessity. The report said that the purchase of modern weapons for the police involved a lengthy procedure of 13 stages. There were other difficulties as well, the committee noted, like the absence of approved testing laboratories, non-availability of special equipment in the market which had to be manufactured or imported, delay in getting abstract bill permissions from the government, etc.17 The inefficiency was added to by ‘lack of coordination among different intelligence gathering agencies resulting in loss of precious lives’.18 It is evident it was not because of the precision strategy or the commando style attacks of the terrorists that the Mumbai attacks were on such a gigantic scale, rather it was because of the absence of a sound command structure and retaliatory measures.

International Reactions When the whole world was waiting for irrefutable evidence, fixation of the responsibility and action against the perpetrators of the Mumbai assault, India was busy playing dice. Pressed between the burden of running a coalition and dealing with a diverse number of voices against its inaction, the union government, paralysed by its own deficiencies failed to take any appropriate action in the aftermath of the attacks. The international community behaved in the most appropriate manner for India in the aftermath of the attacks but India squandered the chance to pressurize Pakistan further. How the opportunity was missed by India can be ascertained from a threadbare analysis of vital US secret cables, made public by the transparency website Wikileaks. The Mumbai attacks, telecast live across the world by electronic media, had created a ripple effect in many governments. Almost all governments across the world understood who was behind the attack. Not only this, they also understood the possible consequences of the attack. What they feared was an armed conflict between the two nuclear neighbours (India and Pakistan) and to avoid such an outcome the international community tried to pacify the two nations. Immediately after the attacks on 28 November 2008, the British High Commission officials in Islamabad told the US Political Councillor in Islamabad that Her Majesty’s Government had evidence that ‘the attacks in Mumbai were carried out by the LeT, which was planning more attacks’. The UK officials feared that the Government

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of India might retaliate with ‘covert activities in Balochistan or even an aerial bombardment of LeT camps in PoK’. To avoid any Indian retaliation, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke with the Pakistani President and asked him to take action against those responsible. ‘The UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband also called President Zardari and Foreign Minister Qureshi and the UK Chief of Defence Staff called the Chief of Army Staff Gen. Kayani with the message that Pakistan must act now to take proactive steps to “rescue” the Indo-Pak relationship’.19 Not satisfied with the phone talk, on 30 November 2008 the British Chief of Staff, Sir Michael Walker and Foreign Minister, David Miliband gravitated to Islamabad along with the British High Commissioner in Islamabad Robert Brinkley where they met President Asif Ali Zardari. During the meeting Miliband passed the same LeT info to President Zardari that they previously had passed to the ISI. Miliband was mindful of the ISI’s role in the Mumbai attacks and he described the ISI DG Lt. Gen. Pasha as a welcome ‘new broom’. He also expressed the UK’s support for ISI reform. However, President Zardari was not very enthusiastic about any reform in the ISI. He said that the new ISI leaders were ‘straightforward’ and their roles were proscribed by the constitution, but it would take time for real conversions. Brinkley and Miliband pressed for Pasha to go to India. President Zardari, although expressing his approval for the visit of the ISI Director General to India, told his visitors that the Pakistan army had vetoed the decision to send Pasha. He told Miliband that it might be possible to send the National Security Advisor Muhammad Ali Durrani, as he outranked Pasha but it would not be possible to send Pasha immediately.20 The suggestion from the UK officials and army personnel was blunt — that ‘Islamabad should act before New Delhi demands more’. However, in retrospect, New Delhi neither acted on the British fear nor demanded more from Pakistan. Pakistan was virtually sandwiched by every major government of the world except the Chinese on the issue of the Mumbai attacks. Immediately after the attack, Brinkley called on the Chinese Ambassador to Islamabad Liou Zhao Hui on 30 November 2008 to discuss among other things the fallout of the Mumbai attack. Hui, who was considered very close to the Pakistani establishment, had met President Zardari and Gen. Kayani before meeting Brinkley. What transpired in the meetings of Hui with President Zardari and Gen.

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Kayani was not known. During his meeting with Brinkley, Hui was decisively secretive and did not spell out about the Chinese stand on the Mumbai attacks. It was understood that the Chinese had offered all kinds of support to the Pakistanis in the event of a conflict with India. In fact Hui was noncommittal in the same meeting when Brinkley raised concerns about China’s reported decision to assist Pakistan to build two additional civilian nuclear reactors (Chasma II and III).21 The Mumbai attacks produced almost a volcanic reaction, in secret, from foreign governments. On 2 December 2008, when the dust of the Mumbai attacks was still to settle, the US Political Counsellor in New Delhi met his Australian, British, Canadian, and New Zealand counterparts in New Delhi. These diplomats gathered in New Delhi to share the responses of their respective governments with each other. The most palpable question for foreign diplomats in India during this time was whether the ISI was behind the Mumbai attacks or not?22 French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the Indian Prime Minister and offered support. The Australian Prime Minister in his speech to his parliament said that Australia ‘stands with India at this time’ and offered any assistance that their ‘friends’ in New Delhi may require. He stressed the importance of tracking down those responsible for the planning and execution of the Mumbai attacks, singling out the LeT as a separatist militant group, which had been a threat to India for a long time. But the Australian leader said that it was too early to speculate on who the perpetrators were. The NSA of India, M.K. Narayanan, delivered a message to the US embassy in New Delhi to inform them about the understanding of India on the Mumbai attacks. The NSA said that although he did not blame the ISI or the army for the Mumbai attacks, he did not absolve them either. He understood Pakistan’s civilian government had no control over the ISI or the army and said India was not blaming the civilian Government of Pakistan. The US Ambassador to Islamabad Anne Patterson called on President Zardari on 2 January 2009 to discuss about the follow-up to the Mumbai investigation. In his meeting with Patterson, Zardari wanted to emphasize that he (and Gen. Kayani) were fully committed to better relations with India. But, he said, there was no way that he could let India attack Pakistan.23 Despite such an outpouring of support and wider consensus amongst the international community, India’s response to the Mumbai attacks remained a stereotyped and toothless inconsistent affair.

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A week after Patterson’s meeting with Zardari, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher landed in New Delhi to meet the Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon (who later became the NSA). India rejected the assurance of Zardari given to Patterson in Islamabad. Menon told his visitor that ‘Pakistan was “nowhere near the threshold of proving sincerity” in its response to the Mumbai attacks and had so far taken no “irrevocable” steps toward eliminating LeT as a threat to India’.24 Menon also said that the civilian government in Pakistan was incapable of taking action against the LeT and the military had not yet made the strategic shift required to do so. To press his point further, the foreign secretary said to Boucher that ‘JeM was behind the assassination attempt on former Pakistani President Musharraf in 2003, but even that did not move the Pakistani army to crack down; the group remains operational and has grown more lethal’. Finally, expressing India’s frustration with Pakistan, Menon told Boucher ‘Let’s not insult one another by telling a story that the Pakistan army was not involved in the attacks’. Menon further said, the ‘Pakistan army paid wages to LeT and sustained the organization, and until these ties were severed, India would continue to regard the Pakistani security services as complicit in the Mumbai attacks’.25 Indian government leaders and bureaucrats were busy blaming Pakistan. But the attitude in the government and bureaucracy was to distance themselves as far as possible from any responsibility connected to the Mumbai attacks. Not only was the Ministry of Home Affairs in India hesitant to take strong action against the perpetrators but the feeling was near the same at the Ministry of External Affairs, which also preferred to see the matter in the same prism. Although the Menon–Boucher meeting and what transpired in it was an outlandish tale of vented Indian frustration, the understanding of India’s high officials could not reach the people who were preparing the chargesheet in Mumbai. The Menon–Boucher meeting was held on 9 January 2009 in New Delhi and the Mumbai attack chargesheet was filed at a Mumbai Metropolitan Court on 25 February 2009.

Reaction from Pakistan Pakistan’s response to the Mumbai attacks surprised the whole world. Although initially the Government of Pakistan officially conveyed condolence messages to Indian leaders and other world

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leaders, within no time they started distancing Pakistan from the attack and denied the involvement of any Pakistani in the attacks. On 27 November 2008, when the Mumbai attack was still on, President Asif Ali Zardari called Indian Congress President Sonia Gandhi before calling Prime Minister Manmohan Singh next morning, and termed the killing of innocent people a ‘detestable act’. The same day Prime Minister Yousuf Raja Gilani called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and said ‘I and the people of Pakistan want to share the pain of the people of India and its government’. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was in Chandigarh in India during the attacks to inaugurate the fifth round of the Indo-Pak Composite Dialogue, noted that he had offered to set up hotlines between the two intelligence chiefs to strengthen their joint anti-terror mechanism. He warned, however, against jumping to conclusions and pointing fingers regarding responsibility.26 On 28 November 2008, Pakistan’s NSA Mahmud Durrani hurriedly called the US’ Chargé d’affaires, Gerald Feierstein and informed him, ‘Pakistan is extremely sorry about the events that have transpired in Mumbai and Pakistan has agreed to the Indian government’s request to send the ISI Director to India to participate in the investigation’. However, the initial bonhomie gave way to a bitter relationship, as within minutes of his calls to the Indian leaders, President Zardari said that his government had no concrete evidence of Pakistani involvement in the attacks. To emphasize his assertion, Zardari said that the American had also confirmed that there was no direct link of the government of Pakistan with the attacks. President Zardari was briefed by his Foreign Minister Mr. Shah Mehmood Qureshi about the latter’s meeting with the US Charge de affairs Gerald Feierstein. In this meeting Mr. Feierstein said that the core issue was whether the Government of Pakistan was directly implicated in the attacks. But he clarified that the ‘US had seen no direct evidence of this to date’. President Zardari was also in denial mood because he got such a briefing from Pakistan Army Chief General Kayani where the General was critical of what he considered India’s rush to judgment about the details of the case, and said that as a former intelligence chief he would never have suggested that he could offer up an analysis of the events so quickly after they concluded. Nevertheless, in a quick turn of events, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed in Islamabad on 3 December 2008 and pressed the Pakistani government to confront the militant group LeT.

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American intelligence officials accused Pakistan’s powerful spy agency the ISI and the army of helping to train the Mumbai attackers. Although Pakistan refused to act against either the ISI or the army, its leaders agreed to take action against the LeT. Strangely, Pakistan delinked its action against the LeT as part of its effort to bring the Mumbai conspirators to book. But it was evident that Pakistan’s action against the LeT was not a voluntary act or out of conviction, but after a stern warning and comprehensive pressure from the US. Two days after Condoleezza Rice’s advice to the Pakistan government, on 7 December 2008, Pakistani security forces raided a training camp used by the LeT near Muzaffarabad and arrested at least 12 of the group’s activists. Among those arrested was Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, the LeT’s operations chief and Zarar Shah, the chief of media wing of the LeT. Indian officials accused Zaki-ur Rehman as being the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks. Zaki-ur Rehman and Zarar Shah were the two names that Rice had conveyed to Pakistan during her visit as persons the FBI wanted to interrogate. Zaki-ur Rehman figured this was because his was the photograph that Kasab had recognized as a top commander during his interrogation by the FBI. After Pakistan, Rice visited India and during her stay, she shared the findings of the FBI with Indian officials. She confirmed that these two names emerged from ‘clinical investigations’ into the attack without any background intelligence. India also accused Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the LeT, of being involved in the Mumbai attacks but Islamabad accused India of not providing evidence that Saeed was directly involved in the attacks. Five days after the arrest of Zaki-ur Rehman, on 12 December 2008, Pakistani authorities arrested Saeed and kept him under preventive custody. Pakistani officials claimed that the arrest of Saeed was not for his alleged involvement in the Mumbai attacks but was under the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) act. Pakistan pretended that action against Saeed and Jamaat-ul-Dawa (JuD) offices were part of the process of abiding by the UN Security Council Resolution 1267. On 11 December 2008, the UNSC declared the JuD as a terrorist organization. It also designated the JuD leader Hafiz Saeed, the group’s operations commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, Haji Mohammed Ashraff, its chief of finance and Mahmoud Ahmed Bahaziq, a financier with the group, as terrorists. As expected, Pakistani action against the JuD was all a hollow exercise. On 2 January 2009, in a meeting with the US Ambassador

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Anne Patterson, President Zardari informed her that ‘the Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Chief Minister Shabbaz Sharif had tipped off the JuD about the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1267 mandated asset freeze, resulting in almost empty bank accounts’. The information was proved correct when Pakistan’s interior ministry indicated that the JuD bank accounts contained surprisingly small amounts.27 By arresting some of the top LeT officials, although not as part of any action against the Mumbai conspirators, Pakistan tried to dissipate the growing war cloud or any surgical raid from India. However, the Pakistani raid near Muzaffarabad was considered Pakistan’s first attempt to respond to the mounting pressure from India and the US to take action against the LeT after the Mumbai strike. On 10 December 2008, in a secret cable, David Mulford, the US Ambassador in New Delhi, informed his home government that Pakistan’s efforts to go after the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks were perceived as insufficient in India. He further informed them that the Indians felt that the Pakistanis were reacting in the way they did following the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, when ‘the usual suspects were rounded up and then released three months later’.28 Curiously, the cable of Mulford became prophetic and exactly the same thing happened in the case of Saeed. Despite the raid and arrest, Pakistan continued to deny the involvement of its citizens in the Mumbai strike. The brazen denial did not go well with the international community for the simple fact that the Mumbai Police had arrested one of the 10 terrorists, who told his interrogators that he had been trained in LeT camps under Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan. In an interview with the CNN show Larry King Live, President Asif Ali Zardari called Kasab and his cronies ‘stateless actors’.29 Although Kasab claimed that he was a native of Faridkot village in Okara district of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Zardari was sceptical about this. The bizarre and untenable denials continued even when investigators in India had pieced together the story of Kasab, the arrested terrorist. Kasab’s was a story of deprivation and rootless drifting that turned an uneducated labourer struggling for survival into a petty criminal and then to a terrorist. Meanwhile, in the midst of Pakistan’s denial, Kasab’s father identified him and complicated Pakistan’s official denial.30 The admission of Kasab’s father made a serious dent in Islamabad’s claim that the terrorists did not come from Pakistan.

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While Pakistan’s then Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Shahid Malik, denied that Kasab was a Pakistani national, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said, in an interview, that Kasab came from Fardikot village in Pakistan. Sharif even deprecated the curbs the Pakistani government and the intelligence agencies put on the movement of media persons and visitors to Faridkot village, which he said was cordoned off. Ending all speculation and Pakistan’s denial, India on 22 December 2008 handed over a letter written by Kasab to the Pakistani envoy that he and his fellow gunmen were from Pakistan. By handing over the letter, India sought to end weeks of denial and diversionary tactics from the Pakistani leadership, which had repudiated any link with the coordinated terror strikes in Mumbai. Also the speculation about a possible military strike by India alarmed the US, which felt that any such military conflict could frustrate its planned surge to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. Toughening India’s posture in the face of the repeated denial of Pakistan, India’s external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said, ‘If there will be any military conflict, nobody declares it in the media. We have kept all our options open’.31 Meanwhile, on 29 November 2008, a hoax call from jailed jihadi Omar Sheikh, serving a life term at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail for his role in the murder of The Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl, heightened the tension. Posing as the Indian foreign minister he phoned the Pakistani president and threatened Pakistan with war if attacks against India did not stop. In response Pakistan kept its air force ready for any eventuality. The debate continued for a while until Condoleezza Rice met her Indian counterpart and cleared up the misunderstanding. There was even talk of surgical strikes by Indian on LeT camps inside Pakistan. The sabre-rattling from Pakistan reached a new level on 25 December 2008 as its foreign minister warned India of a ‘stern response’ to any surgical strikes and the Pakistani armed forces marched towards Jhelum. Pakistan moved its 10th brigade to Lahore and ordered its third armed brigade to march towards Jhelum. It also reportedly put its 10th and 11th divisions on high alert. Pakistan’s army had reportedly stationed its troops in the Rajouri and Poonch sectors of J&K. The move came a day after Pakistan deployed its army in place of the regular Pakistan Rangers along its border with India. An alarmed US sent several high officials to Islamabad to defuse tension. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs

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of Staff, arrived in Islamabad with a tough no-nonsense message from Washington asking Pakistan to act urgently to dismantle terror outfits in that country. But the denial was continued as Rehman Malik, the interior minister, denied the existence of Kasab’s name in the National Database and Registration Authority (NDRA). He made it clear that Pakistan would not act on the request of Kasab for legal aid, communicated through the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, unless it was proved that he was a Pakistani national. Curiously, the NDRA of Pakistan covers only 60 million of the country’s total 165 million population. Such brazen denial infuriated the international community, especially the US and UK. Finally, on 12 February 2009, 77 days after the Mumbai assault, Pakistan admitted that India was indeed right in blaming it for the terror attacks. Rehman Malik accepted that ‘part’ of the conspiracy behind the Mumbai attacks was hatched in Pakistan. He also admitted that the LeT was involved in the attacks and three boats were used from Pakistan to reach Mumbai. This was a complete about turn from Pakistan. How and why did Pakistan change its heart and position? There is a long and secret history to their admission. US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke visited Pakistan on 9 February 2009 to inform his host that the involvement of Pakistan was beyond any doubt and was indefensible. He advised the Pakistani authorities to accept the fact that part of the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan. On 11 February 2009, while Holbrooke was still in Pakistan, President Barack Obama made a phone call to President Asif Ali Zardari. Obama’s call was the last nail in the coffin of Pakistan’s involvement in the Mumbai attacks. The US president informed his Pakistani counterpart that the evidence gathered by the FBI on the Mumbai attacks did not absolve Pakistan. He counseled the president to acknowledge and act upon the evidence. Many foreign nations had advised Pakistan on similar or at times more strict terms to own up to the attacks and prosecute the perpetrators so as to avoid any unwanted situation. Pakistan was forced to concede to the advice and dictates of the US. However, while admitting the involvement of Pakistan, Rehman Malik said not only Pakistan, but the systems of other countries like Italy, Spain, a Middle Eastern country (which he did not identify), the US and Russia had also been used.32 Malik’s unprecedented announcement at a televised news conference was greeted by an immediate change in tone and tenor of key Indian decision-makers. With the slight change of the

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Indian attitude towards Pakistan, the US’ principal objective that the conflict should not get out of hand was achieved. Rehman Malik revealed that six of the suspects ‘are in custody’ while two others remained at large. However, it was not clear when the suspects were arrested as Pakistan had delinked the arrest of Zaki-ur Rehman and Zarar Shah from the Mumbai conspiracy during their arrest on 7 December 2008. When pressed further about the timing of the arrest, the interior minister admitted that arrests began in early December 2008 and 71 suspects had been detained in January 2009. Painstakingly, he admitted that Zarar Shah and Zaki-ur Rehman were arrested among others. Rehman Malik had to eat crow for the simple fact that Pakistan had started arrests even before owning up to the responsibility that its soil had ever been used by the attackers. Though under collective international pressure Pakistan was forced to act against the militants, even after the arrests and detention of LeT terrorists, it took a year to produce any noteworthy result. The first court appearance of seven LeT terrorists came on 25 November 2009, in an anti-terrorist court in Rawalpindi. The court, headed by Justice Malik Mohammad Akram Awan, charged Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, Zarar Shah, Abu Al-Qama, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed, and Younas Anjum with planning, arranging weapons and providing training to the attackers. The seven men pleaded not guilty to charges of planning and helping to execute the attacks when they appeared in court. Zaki-ur Rehman’s counsel filed two petitions in the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court challenging his indictment by the anti-terrorism court in November 2009. Zaki-ur Rehman claimed that there was no evidence and witnesses against him except Kasab and five policemen involved in a case registered in Pakistan. Zaki-ur Rehman claimed that Kasab’s statement to the Indian authorities was not admissible in a case registered in Islamabad.33 Saeed moved to the Lahore High Court in the first week of May 2009 with a petition challenging his detention. He chose A. K. Dogar, a famous constitutional expert in Pakistan, as his lawyer. Attorney General Latif Khosa appeared before the court and produced the new material he had collected against Saeed. Saeed remained under house arrest until 7 June 2009, when a full bench of the Lahore High Court pronounced a verdict, after a month of hearings that quashed his house arrest and ordered his release with immediate effect. The verdict dismissed as a ‘bald allegation being leveled by the Indian

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lobby’ that the JuD and Saeed had links to the Mumbai incident or to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The bench further pronounced that ‘There is also no such evidence declaring that the petitioners are involved in anti-state activities and are security risk’. Saeed was freed and the Indian fear, conveyed by American Ambassador David Mulford to his home government in his secret cable, testified again. The federal and Punjab government moved to the Supreme Court against the Lahore High Court order. In their appeals, the federal and Punjab governments requested the Supreme Court to restore the JuD leader’s detention order which was based on material and classified information furnished by functionaries of the state. Moreover, the government contended that Saeed’s detention had been extended to 60 days on the orders of a review board comprising three judges of the superior court. The high court, they argued, had not considered the sensitivity of the matter, especially the situation emerging from the country’s fight against internal and external terrorism. Advocate A. K. Dogar, the counsel for Hafiz Saeed, argued that his client was a peaceful citizen and was overseeing welfare organizations which ran 180 schools, 52 madrassas and four universities across the country. Dogar struck a chord with the bench when he questioned, ‘Are we going to be condemned because of our beard?’34 On 25 May 2010, the Supreme Court upheld the Lahore High Court order of releasing Hafiz Saeed from preventive detention. A three-judge bench headed by Justice Nasirul Mulk dismissed appeals filed by the federal and Punjab governments citing their failure to produce incriminating evidence against Saeed. In scathing remarks to the US, one of the judges in the bench, Justice Jawad S. Khwaja, observed, ‘We do appreciate that the world has changed after the event of 9/11 and that people are being detained at Bagram prison in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or Poland, but there is a burden on us that we could not allow detention on speculations since our constitution guarantees certain rights to people like liberty and access to fair trial’. The judge further criticized the provincial Government of Pakistan for toying with the coercive tactics of the US. ‘Should we throw out all rights merely because someone in the Punjab secretariat is saying differently?’ the judge asked. On 4 September 2010 Pakistan admitted that the trial in the Mumbai attacks case was stuck and said the formation of a commission to record the testimony of two key Indian witnesses was ‘necessary to take things forward’. During the Home Secretary-level talks held in

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New Delhi in March 2011, India had agreed to host Pakistan’s judicial commission to take statements from Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate R. V. Sawant Waghule, Investigating Officer Ramesh Mahale and the doctor who carried out the post-mortems of the terrorists. The Indian government had conveyed to the Bombay High Court that Sawant and Mahale should be available for questioning by the Pakistani commission. But despite its commitment, Pakistan failed to convey to India as to when its judicial commission would visit the country. Addressing a conference in July 2011 on ‘Countering Extremism in South Asia’ in London, Rehman Malik said, ‘We have registered an FIR against Ajmal Kasab. Our legal experts will go to India in a week or 10 days’ to record the statement of key individuals involved in the Mumbai terror attacks case. The sensitivity of the matter and the obstacles in Pakistan before the Mumbai trial could be understood from the fact that based on the statement of Rehman Malik, a contempt petition was moved against him at the Anti Terrorism Court for violating the court order and announcing the visit of a commission to India before the approval of the court. The Special Public Prosecutor for the FIA, Chaudhry Azhar Ali, explained to the court that the minister in his 28 July 2011 statement had simply said there was a possibility of the formation of a judicial commission which would visit India over the next few days. Following the Special Public Prosecutor’s remarks, advocate Khawaja Sultan Ahmed, representing the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, Zaki-ur Rehman, and the other accused withdrew the contempt plea. Special Judge Anti-Terrorism Court-III (ATC-III) Shahid Rafique disposed the petition after the FIA lawyer said Malik was misquoted by the Indian media and the minister ‘strongly believed in respecting judicial proceedings’.35 With each passing day Pakistan was confronting a new roadblock and it was difficult to say what would be the outcome of the visit of the commission. The question was whether the interaction of the commission in India would be used to bring the conspirators to book or whether the commission might submit a report of doubtful credentials to mincemeat the already frozen Mumbai case.

Indian Opinion The incessant and numerous terrorist hits to mainland India during and before 2008 were added to by a grand attack on Mumbai in the winter of 2008. The attacks were so bold, so gruesome and continued

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for so long that the very foundation of India was shaken. This was what the planners of the Mumbai attacks envisioned and they achieved their objective in terrorizing the whole of India. Indian people were traumatized by the helplessness of the security forces during the carrying out of the attacks. The masses in India were outraged and impatient after the daring assault. Public opinion was strong and mainly focused on the criticism of the stakeholders of Indian law enforcement agencies. The lawmakers were the most vital targets of Indian public opinion. Not only did people want strong protection from the assault of militants but they also demanded strong and decisive action against Pakistan. Indian public opinion was outraged mainly because of four reasons — a) inefficient and corrupt political leadership; b) poor performance of the security forces afflicted with deep rooted corruption and inadequate training; c) systemic failure; and d) Pakistan’s anti-India policy. Cumulatively public outrage was targeted at all the three branches of government — legislature, executive and judiciary — for their seeming incompetence. Citizens of India, through the popular media, wanted to know the answers to many pertinent questions. Was there any credible intelligence about the terror attacks that had been ignored or not taken seriously by the security agencies? Did the security agencies adequately respond to the attacks? Was any local help or guidance given to the attackers? Had there been a comprehensive inquiry into the entire sequence of events and the aftermath and could the people get to see that report? Had any politician of the country bothered about the security of the common citizen? Had new systems been put in place to prevent something like this in the future and had the police and other forces been trained to respond to such attacks? Since the onset of militancy in Kashmir during the early 1990s, loss of lives due to terror attacks in India is a daily affair and the country has developed immunity to the pain of terror casualties. In the four conventional wars that India has fought in the last sixty years, the country has lost 9,857 lives. However, in the last 20 years alone, 62,221 civilians and 9,000 security personnel have been killed by terrorism. Lack of political will to fight terror often makes India a soft target. ‘From 2004 to 2006, Indian intelligence agencies busted 81 terror modules. These were ISI modules all over the country excluding J&K and the North-East’. In 2008 alone, there were 49 terrorist incidents in 19 cities in which 2,525 people had been killed.36 India lost more

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lives to terrorism than to conventional wars. The statistics on terrorism and India’s dismal performance often frustrate the people who are losing faith in the system with each such terror attack. As commandos gunned down the last of the militants in the Mumbai attacks, TV channels were divided between covering the operations and an outpouring of venom against both the ruling Congress partyled coalition and the opposition BJP. The first political casualty, due to intense public pressure, was the federal home minister Shivraj Patil. Patil submitted his resignation to the prime minister immediately after the attacks, accepting moral responsibility for the attacks. But that was not enough to satisfy critics. The newspaper reports were full of anti-politician rhetoric. ‘Our politicians fiddle as innocents die’, the 30 November 2008 issue of The Times of India published as their front-page headline. It was said that being mesmerized by the economic growth rate figures of India was actually misleading, because the tree of the state was being hollowed by termites — the political class.37 The normally pro-Congress Hindustan Times was far more critical than any other newspaper. In its editorial, its editor-in-chief wrote, ‘We are fed up of politicians who use terrorism as an excuse to win votes. In our view, the politicians had failed Mumbai. And it was only a matter of time before they failed India’.38 The fury against politicians was not directed at any individual or any single party, rather it was an all-round rage against the entire political class. The anger against the political class was so strong that slain NSG commando Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s father literally shooed away Kerala Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan. The Chief Minister, who had been criticized for his delay in offering condolences to the bereaved family, who hail from Kerala, tried to make up by calling on the Unnikrishnans. But he failed to anticipate the rejection he would meet at the residence of the fallen soldier. The martyred commando’s father did not tolerate the Chief Minister’s presence and shouted at him to leave at once. Normally, terrorist attacks in India incite communal passion and the debate mostly remains within the boundary of inter-community blame and vilification. But after the Mumbai attacks, the Muslim Council also joined in the condemnation of terrorism and decided not to allow burial of the bodies of the nine terrorists killed during the Mumbai siege in the Marine Lines cemetery. Indian Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta admitted a ‘systemic failure’. The admission came after the disclosure that intelligence

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sources had issued a series of warnings of a possible attack on Mumbai by sea in the months leading up to the strike. The last warning was issued just eight days before the attacks. Nobody blamed President George Bush for 9/11 and for all his faults he was able to ensure that there would be no terrorist attack for the remaining period of his presidency. Likewise, in England also, although the country was shocked by the 7/7 bombings, politicians assured people that there would be no repeat and indeed, there’s been nothing since. After the deadly Bali bombing in Indonesia, there has not been any such terrorist attack on that scale. While the US has succeeded in blocking at least 19 successive attempts to execute attacks on its soil since 11 September, India’s failure has been dismal and consistent. Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Home Minister R. R. Patil came under tremendous criticism for their failure to handle the Mumbai crisis efficiently. Apart from their failure to provide leadership to the state, the Congress leadership became furious over Deshmukh’s visit to the Taj Hotel immediately after the attacks along with his actor son Riteish and Bollywood filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma. Public opinion built up against Deshmukh, who was forced to resign from his post. Before him, his Home Minister was also forced to resign. The public outcry rattled the political class and accountability became the new buzzword. Indian public debate was mostly anti-Pakistani in nature and critical of Pakistan’s export of terrorism into India. The Indian public was in favour of decisive action against Pakistan and sensing the outraged mood of the nation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his address to the nation declared, ‘We will take up strongly with our neighbours that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them’.39 Nearly two weeks after the attacks, winter session of Parliament started and the Mumbai attacks came up for discussion on 11 December 2008. The shocked nation, not very enthusiastic to hear the parliamentarians, held the opinion beforehand that the members only bartered allegations and counter-allegations but on the ground, nothing much could be achieved. The public perception was proved to be correct as the ruling coalition indicated the failures of the opposition when the latter was in power and the opposition never left any stone unturned to score points against the government. Initiating the debate, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: ‘India needs to galvanize the international community to deal sternly and

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effectively with Pakistan’. Everybody knew that the statement of the prime minister was meant only for the gallery. He further said: ‘India must take up the issue with Pakistan to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism’. And finally he said: ‘India needs to recognize that it cannot depend on either of these two approaches for obtaining the outcome India desires’.40 The parliamentarians stated the obvious, which was subsequently missed in the chargesheet, that the LeT could not do things without the knowledge, patronage, guidance, training, and equipment of the ISI.41 Cutting across party lines, parliamentarians unanimously blamed the ISI for the attacks.42 Parliament passed the National Investigation Agency Bill 2008 and amended the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) with a broad unanimity. The NIA was set up with much fanfare. But the debate took an ugly turn when intra-fighting amongst the politicians started. Union Minister A. R. Antulay alleged that the ATS Chief Hemant Karkare was not killed by terrorists but was a target of non-Muslims, who were involved in terrorism incidents which Karkare was investigating.43 Overnight, an India versus Pakistan issue turned into a Hindu versus Muslim finger-pointing exercise. The debate continued for a long time and other politicians joined Antulay. Despite the intervention of top bosses of the Congress party, Antulay never retracted his statement; rather he found support from another Congressman, Digvijay Singh, who had lost his chief ministership in Madhya Pradesh. People became furious as the debate had taken an unwanted turn. The Indian judiciary was blamed for its slow, illusive and inconclusive punishment system, which often promotes terrorism. India’s counterterrorism efforts remain hampered by outdated and overburdened law enforcement and legal systems. The court system in India is slow, laborious, and prone to corruption. Terrorism trials can take years to complete. Many of India’s local police forces were poorly staffed, lacked training and were ill-equipped to combat terrorism effectively.44 Cumulatively all these led to the burgeoning of terror attacks on India. Public ire against the mute response of security officials, who feigned helplessness when terrorists were butchering innocent lives in Mumbai, was very high. The Mumbai Police Commissioner, Hasan Gafoor, charged several officers with refusing to ‘take on the terrorists’. The police force, which bore the brunt of the attacks, had defective bulletproof vests, World War II era firearms and insufficient

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weapons’ training. Many wore plastic helmets and body protectors designed for sticks and stones, rather than bullets, as they fought highly trained militants armed with AK-47 rifles, pistols, grenades and explosives. Sixteen policemen died, including three of India’s top officers. The abysmal state of police equipment helps explain how 10 gunmen managed to paralyse a metropolis of 18 million people for more than 60 hours. India is one of the ‘least policed’ places in the world, with only 126 officers per 100,000 people compared with 225–550 per 100,000 in most Western countries. The question which bothered the public was whether the attack on Mumbai could have been prevented or not. Contrary to accusations of ‘intelligence failure’, it now appears that credible intelligence had been generated about a possible sea-borne terrorist attack on Mumbai. Intercepts of communications over satellite and mobile phones spanning a considerable period were available from Indian as well as US agencies. The Mumbai Police chief denies having received any ‘specific’ information but admitted that rather vague messages were received about attacks likely from the sea somewhere on the West Coast. The chief of naval staff, Admiral Suresh Mehta, admitted that some information had come in but did not think the input as ‘actionable intelligence’. There was tacit admission by the security agencies about the intelligence input due to which the police forces in Mumbai and the coast guard had been on high alert. But despite the high alert, terrorists managed to storm Mumbai. Lack of coordination among different intelligence gathering agencies had resulted in loss of precious lives.45 As it now transpires, even the prime minister’s security was not aware of the alert when they went to the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai just a few hours before the attacks to prepare for the prime minister’s visit a few days hence.

Union versus Province (State) The burden of fixing responsibility has always been a matter of intense public debate. Often fixing of the responsibility for colossal negligence never meets with success. As law and order is a state subject in India, there has always been a tussle between the union government and the provincial government’s approach to dealing with surprise terrorist attacks. States’ rights versus federal power and civil liberties versus stronger law enforcement powers have most of the time made

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the matter complicated. The most important function of the union home ministry is to maintain law and order in the country. The ministry also has the special task of giving guidance to its counterparts in states in important matters pertaining to criminal administration and problems in law and order. There are several laws enacted by the union, which are to be followed by states in governance of policy like IPC, CrPC, etc. But administration of law and order is a state subject according to items 1 and 2 of the state list in the 7th schedule of article 246 of the Indian constitution. The state government maintains the police department and public order. The functions of the police are to prevent crime and investigate crime, so it is very important for the state to maintain law and order. But that does not absolve the centre from its responsibilities, as the centre is answerable to the parliament and people for ensuring that the law and order situation does not go out of control in any part of the country. According to the Constitution, the role of the Union Government is limited to deployment of paramilitary forces, maintenance of IB, RAW, and CBI, recruitment and training of IPS officers amongst other things. But according to Article 355, it is the responsibility of the union government to protect every state from external aggression or internal disturbance. The 42nd amendment has inserted in Article 247A authorizing the union at its own volition to deploy any force of the union, subject to the control of the union, for dealing with a grave situation of law and order in any state.46 Often it happens that the union and the state work on the same subject at cross purposes. Sometimes, both union and state raise their hands from taking action on issues where larger political ramification is involved. The two entities frequently refuse to take vital responsibility and blame each other for their failures. The growing incidents of terrorism have created a difficult situation for democracies, which often do not know how to punish hardened terrorists within a suitable time frame without violating the legitimate rights of citizens, so that law-abiding citizens do not lose faith in the legal processes. The primary responsibility of the state is to maintain rule of law in the country but very often it happens that the state machinery itself becomes the problem. It has often been complained about India that the ‘available expertise at the bureaucratic level to understand, anticipate and evaluate an intricate problem was inadequate and amateurish’.47

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A more damning fact is that over the years, the role of the union home ministry in tackling terror cases and internal security has not been that of a leader but has been just like any other stakeholder. The ministry is often handled by inexperienced ministers. Ministry officials, especially the secretaries, are appointed to their posts with indifferent credentials. Upgradation and modernization is not done on a regular or annual basis. And finally, the provincial governments have shown a declining concern over internal security management. They think that the union home ministry will provide all the forces to maintain law and order but the home ministry has failed to compel the states to be self-reliant in discharging their constitutional obligation to maintain internal security.48 These are the burning issues that the Indian security apparatus has been facing for a long time, apart from the lack of political will and mindset to fight terrorism decisively.

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6 The Motives behind Mumbai Œ

D

uring the last 26 years, starting in 1988, India and Pakistan have had five major confrontations, including the one that developed over the 26/11 attacks.1 These have either brought them close to war or resulted in a sharp border conflict, as in the Kargil war. Terror strikes in India, which invariably originate from Pakistan, provoke periodic crises in South Asia.2 Although India has faced a series of terrorist attacks from Pakistan during the last two decades, the Mumbai attack was considered to be India’s 9/11. An adroit collaboration of mullahs, militants and the military in Pakistan has produced a large number of extremist forces in the country. Sending jihadi fighters to Kashmir and Afghanistan has become a state policy of the Pakistan army and while doing so, the country is not only destabilizing its own security but also inviting conflict from India and Afghanistan. Despite the fact that Pakistan has a long history of supporting cross-border terrorism against India, successive Indian governments have not taken any strong or proactive steps along the lines of the US or Israel to counter terrorism.3 As a result, despite the country’s superior conventional force and nuclear weapons, India is the consistent target of terror attacks from Pakistan. After the 1998 nuclear test in Pakistan, the country’s military has evolved a doctrine that because of the nuclear danger, India is chary of a direct war. The Pakistan army also believes that India would only request ‘the international community to deal sternly and effectively with Pakistan’4 but would shudder to take action on its own despite the fact that Pakistan has been utilizing ‘terrorism as an instrument of state policy’.5 But this doctrine proved wrong in 1999 when India adopted a strong military stand during the Kargil war and employed both army and air power against Pakistan. Against the background above the 26/11 attacks shocked the world and India. For long, it was only guesswork for policy analysts,

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administrators, security personnel and politicians to answer the question: why was Mumbai attacked? The prosecution asserted in the chargesheet that it was due to the problem of Kashmir, to force India to return the province to Pakistan.6 On 6 May 2009, the prosecution presented the reasons behind the Mumbai attack before the Special Session Court Judge, Justice M.L. Tahilyani. The reasons were: (a) to destabilize the Government of India by engineering violence in different parts of the country, (b) to create instability in India by the aforesaid subversive activities, (c) to terrorize the people in different parts of India by indulging in wanton killings and destruction of properties through bomb attacks and use of firearms and lethal weapons, (d) to weaken India’s economic might, (e) to kill foreign nationals who were present in India for deterring foreign citizens from either investing in India or having a relationship with India, (f ) to adversely affect harmony between Hindus and Muslims in India, and (g) to attack the territorial integrity of India and/or to capture Kashmir by attacking major cities in India.7 It was believed, although not mentioned in the prosecution’s chargesheet, that since Pakistan could not wage a war with India as both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers, it was resorting to sending proxy fighters to wrest Kashmir from India’s control. The argument of the prosecutor was not persuasive, because terrorist attacks from Pakistan made resolving the Kashmir problem more difficult. Therefore, the prosecution’s indictment in the Mumbai attack case was not much help in understanding the grand design and real motive behind the attack. The arrest of Kasab was not much help for unearthing the real motive behind the attacks because he was only a foot soldier and because of his education, he was vulnerable to being told that a solution on the Kashmir issue was available through militancy. The strongest and most broad reasons behind the Mumbai attacks, as interpreted by analysts, are threefold. First, it was an assertion by the Pakistan army over the civilian government. Second, the attack was a continuation of Pakistan’s policy of ‘war of a thousand cuts’ to bleed India. Third, the attack was meant to shift world attention and the Pakistani army from Afghanistan to Kashmir.8 However, these reasons, which are a combination of generic vague thoughts, failed to provide clarity on the real motives behind the attacks. The veil over the real motive and real purpose behind the attack was removed when the NIA managed to interrogate Headley in Chicago in June 2010. The NIA document, once superimposed with other available

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circumstantial evidence and contemporary circumstances, reveals the near truth about the motive behind the Mumbai attacks. The Mumbai attack grew out of the pressure on commanders of the LeT to wage a wider war against the West.9 Since 2003, splinter groups had been breaking away from the LeT, the biggest militant organization in Pakistan. Influential LeT commanders developed animosity with the LeT leaders Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur Rehman and left the organization to join radical groups such as al Qaida or the TTP. Major Hashim, Major Haroon, and his younger brother Captain Khurram were the senior LeT members who had developed differences with Zaki-ur Rehman.10 The attrition of senior, experienced and committed LeT members had been costing the LeT dearly. Not only did the estranged senior members vacate the LeT premises but they also took a good number of LeT followers with them. To get clarity into the question of why Mumbai was attacked, it is essential to look into the internal functioning of the LeT and the mutual differences of senior LeT cadres. It would also be elemental to find the points of difference amongst the senior commanders of the LeT and after their departure from the group to find out where had they gone? Captain Khurram wrote an email to Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, on 23 December 2005, where he introduced himself as a former assault commander of the elite anti-terrorist Zarrar Coy from Pakistan’s Special Service Group. Khurram called the 9/11 event a strange volcano, which divided the army personnel on strong ideological lines. He was ‘struck by the jihadi waves and joined LeT in Kashmir in 2003’.11 After 9/11, Captain Khurram, his brother Major Haroon (who had left the army in 2001 to join the LeT) and another unit officer joined the LeT. But after one year, the three former army officers came out of the LeT, dejected after facing the conspiracies of their leadership. Captain Khurram cited LeT leaders’ ‘extreme hypocrisy, luxuries, and evils’12 as reasons for his departure from the group. Captain Khurram and Major Haroon joined the LeT with the hope that through this organization they would wage war against the US and convince the Pakistani army to stop giving support to the US in Afghanistan. But the LeT remained committed to the army and advised its cadre to stay away from al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which left Captain Khurram and Major Haroon high and dry. They left the LeT and joined the Brigade 313 of Ilyas Kashmiri. Their first and foremost aim was to go to Afghanistan to fight against the NATO troops there.13 Many leading LeT members left the organization to join either the Afghan

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fight or Afghan-based organizations.14 Evidentially, the wind in the militant circles in Pakistan was blowing towards Afghanistan as all the militants who left the LeT joined Afghan-based militant organizations. The departure of senior LeT members and their subsequent fight against NATO and the Pakistan army is testimony to the fact that there were internal disturbances in the LeT. Although the LeT originated in the trenches of Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan war, since the 1990s, the organization had been focused and contented with its India-centric plan with a global ambition. As the LeT is very close to the Pakistan army and ISI, the functioning of the organization has always been in sync with their will and wishes. As part of its broader understanding with the army, the LeT refrained from participating in any fight against the Pakistani troops, which were fighting against militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.15 Therefore, annoyed by the LeT’s decision to remained glued to the Kashmir-centric policy, many senior members left the organization. The fast-changing development in Pakistan also motivated the rank and file in the LeT to join the Afghan struggle and take their stand against the Pakistan army. Pakistan’s operation in FATA province, the Lal Masjid operation and the proUS policy of the Musharraf regime infuriated the regular members of the LeT who were demanding action against Pakistan and wanted to join the Afghan struggle. After the departure of many influential members, the LeT was headed by Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur Rehman, Sajid Majid, Yaqub, Abu Alaqama, Abu Qahafa, and Abu Samas. All these senior commanders ‘had a serious problem holding the LeT together and convincing them to only fight for Kashmir and against India’.16 A debate had begun among the cadres of the terrorist outfits as to whether to fight in Kashmir or in Afghanistan. The ‘clash of ideology’ led to splits in many militant outfits in Pakistan. There was another interesting development unfolding in FATA during this time, which further encouraged the attrition of the LeT. There were many splinter groups, which were fighting in FATA since 2004 against the coalition forces and Pakistani troops. In 2007, 13 terrorist organizations came together under Baitullah Mehsud and formed the TTP to wage a joint and collaborative struggle against the coalition forces and Pakistani troops. The TTP had the explicit intention to resist the Pakistani state, enforce their interpretation of Sharia and fight against NATO-led forces in Afghanistan.17 The TTP also affirmed its allegiance to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden.18 Not only did the TTP make those objectives clear but also the organization

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through a series of attacks humbled the Pakistani government and forced on them a few peace treaties.19 Their combined strength and fight made the job of the coalition forces harder. The aggression and commitment to jihad shown by several splinter groups like the TTP, Jund-ul-Fida, Haqqani Network, al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan influenced many committed militants in Pakistan to leave Kashmir-centric outfits and join the Taliban category outfits. Added to this was the fact that insurgency in Kashmir had been decelerated into a calmer and quieter atmosphere beginning in 2004–05 after two decades of ravage and rage.20 During these two decades, the Indian army had decimated 21,323 foreign and Kashmiri militants.21 The casualty number from the Indian security forces was 5,369. Despite such a bloodbath, one thing the militants realized was that whatever casualties the security forces in India suffered, they were not going to get any concession on Kashmir. Contrary to this, there was always a ray of hope in Afghanistan to reclaim the territory from foreign occupation. The advantage with the fight of the Taliban in Afghanistan was that they were fighting a known battle, to take power from foreign forces, and they had a concrete theatre of war. Therefore, the Afghan fighters had stronger backers and followers than their Kashmir counterparts.22 Every Pashtun Muslim militant revered Mullah Omar, who was also a religious leader with a broad support base, and supporting him was more appealing than supporting a flagging Kashmir struggle. For the Pakistani militants, participating in the Afghan fight appeared far more advantageous and glamorous than fighting in Kashmir. Under such trying circumstances, Zaki-ur Rehman faced a serious problem in holding the cadres of the LeT together and convincing them to fight for Kashmir. However, contrary to the feelings of the rank and file, Zaki-ur Rehman always remained loyal to the ISI agenda and jihad in Kashmir since the 1990s. Based on his long years of association with the ISI, he has developed his own theory to justify the LeT’s engagement in Kashmir. He cited three principal reasons to justify why the LeT should stick to the Kashmir agenda. These were (a) since the ratio of deployment of forces in Kashmir vis-à-vis the general population was one of the highest it was legitimate to fight the occupational forces in Kashmir; (b) since the LeT was closer to the Kashmir situation and population than Afghanistan, it could perform jihad better in Kashmir than in Afghanistan; and (c) since Kashmir was the nearest to the LeT camps it became imperative to liberate Kashmir from the clutches of the occupational force.23 Zaki-ur Rehman also

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believed that the LeT had worked and sacrificed for years to build up their name and fame in Kashmir, which would not be easy to replicate in Afghanistan. That was why he wanted LeT cadres to remain focused on the Kashmir agenda. The top commanders of the LeT refused to recognize the developments on the ground, despite the fact that they knew the reason for the attrition of the LeT cadres. Nevertheless, they wanted to stop the gradual disintegration of the LeT. They understood very well the fact that they needed some kind of magical trick to retain their cohorts and rank and file together. Under such trying circumstances, top LeT commanders were compelled to consider a spectacular terrorist strike in India.24 Their discussion gradually gravitated towards the Mumbai attack project.

The Other Reasons Since the 9/11 attacks, the Pakistan army and the ISI were fighting a forced battle in Afghanistan. The ISI was under ‘tremendous pressure to stop the integration of Kashmir-based outfits with jihadi-based outfits’ and hoped ‘to shift the theatre of violence from the domestic soil of Pakistan to India’. It was in the interest of the ISI to always keep the two sets of terrorists poles apart.25 The challenge before the ISI was how to do so. If the agency was able to manage a limited confrontation with India or produce a magnificent attack against India, which was the common enemy of all, then it would be easy for the ISI to take the Kashmir-based militants out of the reach of jihad-based militants in Pakistan. This would serve three key purposes. First, there would be a halt to any further split within the Kashmir-based outfit; second, such a grand attack on India would give some sense of achievement to the terrorist outfit who might not turn their eyes either to Afghanistan or FATA where Pakistan was at the receiving end; and third, the attack might shift the theatre of violence from domestic soil to India.26 A key motivation for the ISI in aiding the attacks was to bolster militant organizations with strong links to the Pakistani state and security establishment who were being marginalized by more extreme radical groups. The ISI had attacked India under its grand plan, the ‘Karachi Project’, in the past as well, but ‘the agency had no ambiguity in understanding the necessity to strike India’ on a larger scale. After 9/11 the ‘terrorist groups in Pakistan have re-moulded the pan-Islamist view of world domination by the Pakistani mujahideen organizations into a nationalist outlook that is liberating Kashmir only’. But this

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trend did not continue for long as beneath the surface of Pakistan, a volcanic eruption was waiting. ‘The Pakistani organizations were probably the largest in the world in terms of cadres, logistics, and support base to stop (mujahideen) from attacking the US interests, against which they had been raising slogans for years’.27 It was only a matter of time until the Pakistani mujahideen joined against the US in Afghanistan. ‘To break this tide from joining al-Qaeda and the Taliban inside Afghanistan was a huge task’ for the army, ISI as well as the militant commanders. ‘The officials can claim some success’ in restricting the mujahideen from joining the al-Qaeda and the Taliban but as former senior LeT trainer Captain Khurram rhetorically said, ‘the real credit goes more to the corrupt leadership inside organizations, rather than the security and the intelligence hierarchy’.28 To stop this integration of jihadi-based outfits with Afghan-based organizations, the ISI orchestrated the grand Mumbai attacks. There was another very important reason behind the Mumbai attacks. The reason could be decipherable from the reaction of the civilian government and the army of Pakistan. A day after the Mumbai attacks, on 27 November 2008, President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani were alerted and after the request from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, both of them promptly offered to send the ISI Chief to assist India in the investigations.29 Before sending the ISI chief to India, the army chief Gen. Kayani intervened and explained that sending the ISI chief to India meant an admission of guilt and the decision was stalled. Later President Zardari even explained to the public that, ‘the army thought it was too soon to send such a high official’. Zardari admitted to Anne Patterson, the US Ambassador in Islamabad on 2 January 2009 that the army had vetoed the decision to send the ISI chief to India. Zardari told the public that the army never overruled him as eventually ‘Pakistan offered for the intelligence chief to meet his Indian counterpart’.30 However, the message had already been conveyed about who was in the driver’s seat. The civilian leadership behaved in an entirely different manner from its military in the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attack and even before. Unmindful of the feeling in the rank and file of the army, President Zardari, after taking over as president in September 2008, began a series of new initiatives to cement the relations between India and Pakistan. Shading the burden of the past, Zardari even said that ‘India was not a threat to Pakistan’. He proposed a visa-free regime between the two countries. He expansively offered ‘a no first use’

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of nuclear weapons agreement to India.31 However, it proved to be a bitter pill for the military to swallow and the army dragged its feet to limit the generosity of Zardari. Pakistan’s army doctrine in recent years had rested on the premise that as long as India feared a nuclear first strike by Islamabad, it would not want to engage with its neighbour in a full-scale war.32 When the army informed Zardari about the first strike doctrine, he retracted his statement on the no first use offer. There was every possibility that the civilian government of Pakistan might not be involved; rather, it might be a target of the strike. This was more evident from the fact that the Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shah Mehmood Qureshi was in India on a four-day official visit when the attack took place. Quereshi took a bold decision not to cut short his visit and informed the media of his decision. However, the Indian government was told at 2.30 a.m. on 27 November 2008 that a special aircraft was being sent less than four hours later to take Quereshi back to Pakistan. The Pakistan army chief’s plane was sent to Delhi to pick up Qureshi, who boarded the flight around 7.00 a.m. on 27 November.33 This time as well the army chief overruled the civilian foreign minister. The complicity of the Pakistan army in the attack was further proved by the fact that the attack coincided with another highlevel Indo-Pak strategic discussion in Islamabad. The fifth round of the ‘Interior/Home Secretary Level Talks’ between India and Pakistan on ‘Terrorism and Drugs Trafficking’ was going on in Islamabad when the attackers arrived in Mumbai.34 The senior officials of the interior ministry in Pakistan were caught off-guard when the attack took place in the midst of the meeting. These were all signals that the newly elected government was in the dark about the army plan and action. For the Pakistani army, insurgency was a successful strategic ploy to tie down hundreds of thousands of Indian troops who would otherwise have been deployed on the border and possibly threatened Pakistan.35 The ISI reined in the terrorists so as not to provoke Indian military retaliation against Pakistan and this ‘strategic restraint’ prevented Western governments from coming down too hard on Pakistan. After 9/11, Pakistan joined the US war with the hope that after the war against the Taliban they might gain a US concession to force India for a settlement on Kashmir. However, thousands of Pakistanis were killed and wounded while fighting the Taliban but the Kashmir objective remained as elusive as before.36 With this, the army failed to understand why it was fighting such a long war with

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its Islamic brethren. As the army was seen to be fighting America’s war against fellow Islamists, internal unrest grew. Internal security started deteriorating in the country. Rebellion raised its head in Balochistan and NWFP. Fundamentalist forces, with the exception of the LeT, were turning against the army. Luxurious hotels and marketplaces were targeted by suicide attacks and bomb blasts. Unwilling to fight their fellow Muslims, 1,700 army personnel deserted the army in the FATA region, the first such incident of its kind in the army’s history.37 Under such circumstances, Gen. Musharraf was forced to divulge some power. A new arrangement was arrived at between the army and government. The presidency was separated from the army and Gen. Asfaq Pervez Kayani took over as the army chief in November 2007. There was an urgent need to raise the morale of the army and unite the country. The army and the ISI, still obsessed with their enemy, India, were to resurrect the Islamists from defeat and demoralization. Given the situation, the army encouraged an attack against India to gain popularity in Pakistan and to get some relief from the Western border. The Pakistani military thought that if India responded the way it had done in 2001 after the parliament attack, then the army might be withdrawn from the Western border and relocated on the Eastern border. The war-weary Pakistani commanders in the ISI and Pakistani army wanted to end their fighting on the Western border and control the internal chaos in the country. Collectively, all these factors resulted in the Mumbai attacks.

The Financiers of the Mumbai Attack The world was stunned by the sheer scale and length of the Mumbai attacks and as the preparatory time for the attack ran through not less than two years, the entire exercise was not possible without an enormous supply of finance from one or multiple sources. The commando style attack required the training of a host of people, international visits for reconnaissance and technical devices as well as weapons. The LeT gathered all these supports from a host of its sympathizers living in at least three continents. Trailing the root sources of the money for the Mumbai attack is an intriguing affair. However, it is evident from the investigation that the funding for the attack gravitated to the LeT from multiple sources.38 The multilayered funding for the attack came primarily from the ISI, the provincial Government of Punjab, Saudi individuals/groups

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and non-resident Pakistanis. A year after the Mumbai attack in December 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reported in a secret cable that ‘Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for the LeT, which probably raises millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during Hajj and Ramadan’.39 The cable was categorical about the ISI’s supporting role in facilitating funding for the LeT. Clinton also revealed that ‘some officials from the ISI continue to maintain ties with the LeT to secure funding for the organization’. The terror operatives in the Gulf, which funded the serial blasts in Bangalore on 25 July 2008, had a significant role in the 26/11 attack as well. Extensive details of LeT activities in the Gulf region emerged during the interrogation of Sarfaraz Nawaz, an Indian citizen from Kerala, who played a crucial role in the serial blasts in Bangalore. Indian security agency RAW was able to locate Nawaz in Muscat, who was under arrest by the Royal Omani Police (ROP) for being involved with the LeT cell. Oman secretly extradited Nawaz to India during the early months of 2010 in order for him to face trial and help the Indian investigators.40 Nawaz was a key link between the LeT’s the Gulf leadership and its sympathizer in South India. Based on Nawaz’s interrogation and information received by Indian intelligence agencies from the Gulf, it was ascertained that the LeT had been using the Gulf region as a major logistics centre for recruitment, financing and movement of Indians to Pakistan. Hillary Clinton reiterated this concern in her secret cable on 30 December 2009. Wali, alias Rehan, a Pakistani national, was running the entire LeT operation in the Gulf region. He was being assisted by several others, including some locals such as Omani citizen Abdul Aziz al Hooti, who procured some of the SIM cards for the 26/11 attackers.41 Al Hooti was arrested in May 2010 by the ROP, for planning to carry out local terror attacks. Interestingly al Hooti (who has been sentenced for life in Oman) had visited Mumbai days before the attack took place. Police in Oman relayed the message to the Indian police that he remained in close contact with LeT commanders in Pakistan and had direct links with key suspects of the Mumbai attack. In Qatar, LeT operations were looked after by Abu Farris, whose main work was to attract Indian expatriates to jihad. The LeT network in the Gulf has managed to recruit several dozen Indian Muslim youngsters for training in Pakistan, many of whom have come back

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to India to carry out strikes. Many of these men are former Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) members who had moved to extremist views over the past two decades. The Uttar Pradesh Police arrested a Pakistani national and ISI operative Waqas Ahmad at Bithoor on the outskirts of Kanpur in May 2010. The phone number he used to contact his handlers for funds, it turned out, was among those that Headley had used to speak with three serving Pakistan army personnel who had helped organize his mission to carry out the reconnaissance in Mumbai.42 The web of the Mumbai attacks was complex and very vast, considering the LeT’s clout in most part of the Gulf, which included Saudi Arabia, Oman and UAE, where the LeT had a network to carry out its specific India operation. Interior Minister Rehman Malik, while admitting the role of Pakistani citizens in the attack, informed the media that part of the planning was carried out in one Middle Eastern country. The country’s name remained unnamed until Indian investigators joined the dots. The Mumbai operation needed hard cash to carry out numerous surveillance trips in Mumbai. Headley visited India as many as 10 times, nine times before the attack and once after the attack. The ISI met the expenses of Headley for a few visits with the knowledge of Sajid Majid of the LeT. Before his first visit to India on 14 September 2006, Major Iqbal came to Headley’s residence at 6, Canal Bank Road, in Lahore and paid US$25,000 in three bundles (US$10,000, US$10,000 and US$5,000).43 The flow of the money is a testimony to the governmental and institutional support to the LeT. Headley also revealed that before his fifth trip to India on 4 September 2007, Major Iqbal again gave him an undisclosed amount of counterfeit Indian currency to use in India. The firearms seized from the possession of the terrorist bear the manufacturing mark of Pakistan government’s ordinance factory.44 This is an indication of the fact that the ISI further shared the expenses on weapons the terrorists used in the operation. Curiously, the LeT was supported by governmental budgetary allocation. In 2009–10, the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz-led government of Punjab province provided 82.77 million Pakistani rupees to the JuD and its allied institutions.45 A detailed expenditure list on who spent how much on what for the Mumbai attacks is not available but, in bits and pieces, the details have emerged from classified documents. In August 2008, Sajid and Headley travelled from Muzaffarabad to Rawalpindi to buy all the necessary equipment for the attackers. For Headley’s April 2008 India visit for locating the landing site for the

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attackers, Sajid provided 40,000 Pakistani rupees. The LeT used its own money for obtaining a boat to sail towards Mumbai from Karachi. In a discussion, Sajid told Headley that the first boat, which the voyagers used during the abortive attempt in September 2008, cost the LeT 25 lakh Pakistani rupees.46 The boat got damaged. So, during the second and successful cruise, the terrorists hijacked an Indian boat, hence it did not cost anything to the LeT. There was another affluent source of funding available for the LeT to fund Headley’s multiple trips to India and Denmark. Dr Tahawwur Hussain Rana, one of Headley’s classmates at Hasan Abdal in Pakistan also funded the attack. Both Rana and Headley were followers of the LeT and they were running their sleeper cell. Rana is a Canadian citizen of Pakistani descent, who primarily resided in Chicago with business interests in Chicago, New York and Canada. He graduated from a military school located in the Pakistani town of Hasan Abdal, where Headley had also spent his childhood.47 Before migrating to Canada in search of greener pasture, Rana was an officer of the rank of captain in the Pakistan Army Medical Corps. Rana immigrated to Canada in 1997 along with his physician wife and obtained Canadian citizenship in 2001. When Headley informed Rana about his surveillance trips, Rana offered his help. Not only did Rana provide cash funding but he helped Headley obtain an Indian visa and provided the much-needed cover in Mumbai. Rana gave the name and details of one Bashir who would receive Headley at Mumbai airport. Bashir readily received Headley and helped him to settle in this new city by way of opening an Immigration Law Centre at Tardeo AC market in Mumbai. The Immigration Law Centre was funded by Rana, which Headley used as a cover for his stay in India. An apprehensive Headley did not use any contact from the ISI or LeT during his first visit to India. Rana sent an unspecified amount of money to Headley twice during his India visit to run the front office and to conduct the surveillance in Mumbai. Headley used to collect the money from a bank just opposite the Oberoi Hotel in the Marine Drive area of Mumbai.48 The entire operation showed the wide financial tentacles of the LeT and the brilliant management of the terror fund by this deadly terror group.

The State Actors Even before the conclusion of the 62-hour Mumbai siege, the point that reached home in India was that the act was impossible without

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the active and organized support of a professional army.49 Immediately after the attacks, fingers were pointed towards the ISI. With each passing day, fresh facts started trickling in about the involvement of officers from the Pakistani establishment.50 The international and domestic media quoted, in bits and pieces, about the direct involvement of the Pakistan army and the ISI.51 Intelligence reports, interrogation reports and court materials were full of names, designations and capacity of the state players involved in the attack.52 The analysis of classified documents related to the Mumbai siege and careful scrutiny of the court materials would take the readers closer to the persons involved in the planning, plotting and execution of the conspiracy. Half a dozen Pakistan army and ISI officials were involved in the conspiracy. Classified documents provide a rare glimpse into the shadowy functioning of the ISI, militant organizations, and their transnational operations. One of the most influential persons in this conspiracy was Major Hashim. Son of a Pakistani army Major, Hashim himself was a retired Major of 6 Baloach Regiment. In the aftermath of September 11 attacks, the Musharraf government sent troops into the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and Major Hashim was posted on the Pakistan side of Tora Bora mountain where dreaded al-Qaeda militants were hiding. He refused to fight the al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters and was demoted to the rank of a captain. However, later, he managed to retain his post and deserted the army to join the LeT.53 Major Hashim’s role was central to the Mumbai conspiracy. The role played by Major Haroon alias Haroon-ul-Islam of 10 Punjab Regiment and Captain Khurram, the younger brother of Major Haroon and alumni of 6 Baloach Regiment, has already been discussed in detail.54 The most abused names of the ISI personnel in the Mumbai assault case are those of Major Sameer Ali and Major Iqbal. Once their names were made public by Indian security agencies, the ISI swiftly denied the existence of such officers on its payroll. Obviously, spies do not carry their original names in their jobs and both these names were the pseudonyms of the two ISI officials who had been successful in carrying out subterfuge in the investigative branches of India, the US and other countries. Very little is known about Major Sameer Ali other than the fact that he was an ISI officer as reported by the NIA documents.55 Major Iqbal’s identity is also a mystery but there was enough information available to the NIA about his trail and traits. The NIA believed that his payroll name was Iqbal Choudhary and he was a serving Major in the ISI. There was another ISI officer, Lt. Col. Hamza, who was senior

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to Major Iqbal both in rank in the ISI and in his association with the LeT. All classified documents prove the fact that the ISI trio were the original planners and managers of the Mumbai assault plan.56 Together they managed the plot from scratch to the successful implementation of the operation and remained elusive from the arms of national and international law. Lt. Col. Hamza was the overall officer-in-charge of the plot while Major Sameer Ali and Major Iqbal were the top executives. NIA documents also talk about one Col. Shah of the ISI, who, it was said, was very close to the LeT leadership and involved with the Mumbai crime.57 However, investigators knew very little about him. Official connivance and the organized participation of the ISI in the Mumbai conspiracy would be ascertained from the fact that the ISI director Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha was prompt to make a personal visit to the architect of the Mumbai attack, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, in Adiala jail. Zaki-ur Rehman was arrested on 7 December 2008 and Lt. Gen. Pasha met him inside the safe premise of the Adiala jail at Rawalpindi to get a detailed view of the attack plan and to understand the conspiracy.58 The conspiracy was started under the direction of Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Kayani, who was then Director General (DG) of the ISI. After Gen. Kayani was promoted to chief of army staff, Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj became the DG of the ISI and routinely executed the plans of Gen. Kayani. Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha replaced Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj as head of the ISI just over a year before the attack. Hence the ISI’s front officers did not inform the new DG about the ongoing operation and it was possible that the top ISI command lost ‘ownership’ of the operation around that time.59 Sajid Majid met Zaki-ur Rehman in Adiala jail, where he got to know about the meeting of Zaki-ur Rehman and Lt. Gen. Pasha. A worried Lt. Gen. Pasha asked Zaki-ur Rehman to ‘deny LeT’s and ISI’s role in planning and orchestrating the Mumbai attack and advised him to declare it to be an al-Qaeda operation’. This was primarily meant to reduce the extra burden on the ISI, as the agency was widely criticized and censured by the international community for its double-dealing in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, it was a difficult suggestion to accept for the LeT. The contradiction on the part of the ISI was palpable. On the one hand, the agency wanted to give some sense of achievements to the LeT and supported the Mumbai assault but on the other hand, the agency asked the LeT to disown the attack. For the LeT, the Mumbai attacks were meant to immortalize the organization and

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to receive international publicity on the scale of al-Qaeda. Therefore, for the LeT, it was very difficult to disown the attack, which would prove the spinelessness of the organization and cause further attrition. Zaki-ur Rehman bluntly refused Lt. Gen. Pasha’s request. He told him that the burgeoning awareness across the world about the LeT’s execution of the ‘audacious attack’ would get it ‘new members’ in huge numbers.60 He also thought that the attacks would also bring in fresh ‘funds’ for the LeT from the entities empathetic to the cause of ‘jihad’ in India. Interestingly, the LeT and the ISI shared a client–patron relationship, where the LeT received protective cover to operate in Pakistan for its loyalty to the ISI’s agenda vis-à-vis India. Normally, the LeT never refused the dictate of the ISI, but in this case the refusal was straightforward. Could the LeT defy the ISI? Well, to an extent yes. Though the LeT depended massively on the ISI for funds, direction, training inputs, and logistics, the organization functioned to a great extent with its own support system in the country.61 Moreover, as far as the Mumbai attack was concerned, it was another set of ISI guys who had collaborated with the LeT since 2005 for the execution of the 26/11 conspiracy. Lt Gen. Pasha was out of the loop and by the time he had come, the die was cast. The LeT had put in much effort and preparation for the attack and wanted to reap what it thought were deserving rewards. The message that the Nariman House attackers had given in a phone interview during 26/11 was the set of aims/propaganda for which the LeT owed its existence. Imran Babar and Fahadullah, the two attackers, called the India TV channel and made a host of demands such as the end of torture and injustice in Kashmir, withdrawal of force from Kashmir, liberation of Hyderabad and Junagarh, revenge for the Babri Masjid demolition and the Sachar Committee report to mention a few.62 For Lt. Gen. Pasha, could the LeT squander that away? It did not. The LeT is not a fly-by-night organization or a corrupt one. It is dedicated to its cause through terror and bloodbaths.63 The arrest of Kasab, the phone intercepts during the attacks and the interrogation of Headley proved that the Mumbai attack was orchestrated by the LeT with the active support of the ISI. Zaki-ur Rehman would have looked a fool had he claimed it was an al-Qaeda act.

The LeT: A Projection for the Future The availability of literature on the LeT is abundant. Most of it explains the historical journey of the group and a small amount at best describes the

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ideological orientation of the LeT. Immediately after the 26/11 attack, the US despatched a team under the leadership of New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Under-Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Charles Allen to analyse and provide information on the attack.64 Since then the US government has commissioned dozens of studies to examine the potential danger of the LeT to the US homeland and US ‘interest’ abroad.65 The US government also invited Congressional hearings on this subject from senior defence officials and intelligence personnel. With the submission of dozens of research studies on the LeT to the US government and its subsequent media coverage, there was a flooding of research materials on its threat assessment. Interestingly, all the studies were meant to assess the LeT’s potential to harm US ‘interest’ inside and outside America.66 After the US, almost all leading governments and universities of repute commissioned studies on the Mumbai attack by the LeT from the same perspective — what would be the future potential of the LeT to harm ‘Western Interest’?67 Since the LeT had never attacked any Pakistani interest, there was no such study required or available in Pakistan. Curiously, despite the fact that India is the primary target of the LeT, the Government of India neither employed nor produced any futuristic study on the LeT. India’s intelligentsia was almost silent on this vital subject. There were a few studies available after the Mumbai attack but those were mostly visual spectacles and copy-paste jobs.68 What few futuristic studies are available in India about the LeT are only in the domain of newspapers and print periodical magazines. The Indian media has done a commendable job on this subject, not only because of their access to information but also because of their commitment to undertake such studies on the LeT.69 At the time of writing, the LeT has never attacked any US target on US soil. The paintball jihadi (LeT trained terrorists supposed to attack US targets) never succeeded.70 Outside the US, the LeT has never conducted an exclusive attack on any US interest and wherever there was some report of the LeT’s participation in any attack against a US target, the role of the LeT was fiduciary in nature.71 Despite its anger, the group refrained from attacking US interests in the Asian continent.72 The US sees the LeT through the prism of al-Qaeda and is hence paranoid with the very thought of a repetition of 9/11.73 Contrary to US paranoia, India has been continuously under attack from the LeT. Since 1990, nearly 95 per cent of LeT operations have been directed against India.74 As per the South Asia Terrorism Portal, which lists chronologically the attacks conducted by the LeT, there

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have been dozens of LeT attacks on India since November 2008.75 The most significant terrorist attacks carried out either by the LeT or its proxies since November 2008 were the Pune bombing of February 2010, Zaveri Bazaar (Mumbai) bombing of July 2011 and the Delhi High Court bombing of September 2011.76 These attacks are testimony to the growing capacity and commitment of the LeT to orchestrate deadly terror strikes against India. This section will analyse the threat of the LeT towards India. What are the LeT’s objectives today, and how are they likely to achieve them? What role would the ISI play? How will the LeT work with other groups? And what is likely to be the international pressure on the LeT? Answers to these questions are vital for the future security of South Asia. After the end of the Afghan war in 1989, when the LeT shifted its base from Paktia to Muridke, India became the prime target of the group. While the primary area of operations of the LeT is Jammu and Kashmir, the outfit has carried out attacks in other parts of India, including in New Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. For the India-centric threat assessment of the LeT it is necessary to measure and calculate the capacity and strength of the LeT. The LeT adheres to the Ahl-e-Hadith school of thought, which is basically followed by a miniscule number of people (around 4 per cent) in Pakistan.77 There is no official estimation about the number of followers of various sects like Berelvi, Deobandi, Ahl-eHadith and Shia in Pakistan as they can only be differentiated by virtue of their tradition of veneration of saints and their shrines.78 Even the mandate of the Pakistani Census of 2011 does not cover enumeration of sect under religion.79 Gen. Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization policy of the 1980s delegated contradictory shares of madrassas to various religious sects. Since the Zia-era, while 64 per cent of the total seminaries are run by Deobandis, the Barelvis and Ahl-e-Hadith controls 25 per cent and 6 per cent respectively. A mere 3 per cent of madrassas are owned by various Shiite organizations.80 However, this religious segmentation does not decide the affiliation of militants, irrespective of their position whether they are leaders or cadres of any militant organization. For example, none of the Mumbai attackers were Ahle-Hadith followers. During their preliminary training, all of them were converted into Ahl-e-Hadith.81 David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana were of Takfiri background.82 Similarly, LeT trainers Major Abdur Rehman Hashim, and Captain Khurram adhered to Takfiri ideology.83 Major Haroon was a Salafi. The religious

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inclination of Col. Shah, Major Iqbal and Major Ali, the ISI officers who facilitated the LeT’s Mumbai attacks, is not known, but based on the interrogation report of Kasab and Headley, they all probably belonged to the Deobandi brand of Islam. The profile of most of the LeT militants of India is either Deobandi or Barelvi.84 The participation of myriad groups of people in LeT operations indicates the fact that the LeT possesses the tremendous capacity to gather people from diverse Islamic sects under one banner to wage war against India. It is believed that the membership of the LeT extends to about 150,000 people. The confession of Kasab made it clear that the LeT has the capacity to quickly and inexpensively train young men from villages into intensely driven, proficient killers.85 During the long duration of its existence and despite the ban of the group by leading countries since 2001, the LeT’s capacity and strength has seen a gradual increase and there is no sign of its reduction in the immediate future. Considering this trend, the group’s terror attacks against India would continue in the coming years. Immediately after the Mumbai attack, Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi were arrested while other leaders of the LeT went underground or remained at large. After a while, Hafiz Saeed was released by a court order and the LeT resumed low intensity fringe attack in Jammu and Kashmir.86 The training camps of the LeT are found across PoK, Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and FATA in Pakistan87 and Nuristan, Kunar and Paktia in Afghanistan.88 Many of them are allegedly near the Pakistan army’s cantonment area.89 So it is evident that this infrastructure would not be divested in the near future, no matter what the international pressure. The LeT has high speed recreational boats, scuba diving equipment and water scooters at their disposal. The group has been regularly offering maritime training to its cadres at its Muridke camp, at Mangla Dam and at Neelum River. The Mumbai attack was considered its most successful operation ever conducted by a maritime entry into the city. The group may not repeat another maritime entry into Mumbai. However, considering the group’s maritime capacity, there is every possibility that Chennai or Kolkata might be the next target. In that case, the LeT militants would not start their journey from Karachi but either from Jaffna (Sri Lanka) or Chittagong (Bangladesh).90 The US Pacific Command has already gathered intelligence about the LeT’s influence in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.91 The LeT possesses legendary networks in India. The group is in possession of well-knit like-minded people and groups in J&K,

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Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka. The LeT’s activities in these states are often carried out by its support network in the province concerned. How does the group manage to align with indigenous terrorist groups and how has the group’s reach in India been so vast and so expansive? The merger of Dawood Ibrahim’s gang with the LeT at the behest of the ISI had significantly expanded the LeT’s reach in the country. ‘Many members of Dawood’s gang have been indoctrinated and trained in the use of weapons in the Bahawalpur centre of the LeT near Lahore’.92 The ISI had roped in the Dawood Company in LeT activities because, ‘The underworld’s penetration in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu is very deep. By synergizing the Dawood gang with the LeT, the ISI’s reach has increased manifold’.93 The LeT has collaborated successfully with groups like SIMI and the Indian Mujahideen (IM). The SIMI activists were guns for hire for a long time and the LeT developed links with them to unsettle India. The deep penetration of the LeT inside the hinterland of India was because of its collaboration with SIMI and the D-Company.94 Dawood Ibrahim generated billions of dollars in revenue from various illegal activities such as contract killings, illegal smugglings, extortion, staking claim to the profit of real estate businesses in big cities, managing hawala networks and by running an enterprise of criminal networks around India, Pakistan and U.A.E. Dawood’s is the largest organized crime syndicate in South Asia, which is named as D-Company by the popular media and Mumbai police. The IM is also aligned with the LeT on a case-by-case basis and hence increases the LeT’s reach in India.95 The LeT’s calibrated collaboration with various Indian groups has increased its capability to strike India even during a time of increased vigilance. It is nearly impossible to tame LeT activities in India without disciplining the indigenous groups. In future, the LeT would certainly work to empower and energize these indigenous groups and the vulnerability of India would increase. To reduce the risk of an LeT collaborative attack on Indian soil, Indian agencies would be required to do the profiling of local groups and increase intelligence interception to track if any freelancer was ever collaborating with the LeT. In Pakistan, the LeT has taken on a gigantic profile which even elected government shudders to disturb. High-ranking Indian officials admitted the fact that President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani had been facing difficulty in dealing with Punjab-based groups like the LeT.96 India’s worry was that the civilian government was incapable of taking

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action against the LeT and the military had not yet made the strategic shift required to do so. During the Kargil War, LeT militants fought along with their army counterparts in the mountains of Kashmir.97 Immediately after the Kargil defeat, the LeT organized a mass rally where Hafiz Saeed addressed the gathering saying, ‘We will not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan’. He assured the audience that the LeT would continue sending militants into India and ‘Allah will save them from the fires of hell and huge palaces in paradise awaited those martyred by infidel enemies’.98 There was no demoralizing effect due to the Kargil defeat on the LeT as the organization promised to send mujahideen into India. Probably this was the reason why the Pakistan army paid wages to the LeT and sustained the organization.99 The army–LeT nexus is especially important as most of the militant groups of Pakistan have turned their guns inward and the LeT is the only group which has not only refrained from attacking Pakistani interests but also discouraged other groups too. Due to its proPakistan ideology and policies, it has deep roots in Pakistani society and military establishment. The robustness of the alliance could be measured from the fact that Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi was still directing LeT operations from custody inside the Adiala Jail. According to a US memo sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the National Security Council, Gen. Kayani rejected a US request that authorities take away the cell phone Lakhvi was using in Adiala jail.100 What is more significant is that the JuD, one of the aliases of the LeT, is no more a banned organization in Pakistan. On 5 November 2011, the interior ministry of Pakistan released a list of 31 banned organizations. The LeT was on the list but its changed name was missing.101 With renewed support pouring from every conceivable source, the LeT is operating with impeccable immunity and posing a greater threat to India than ever. The Indian army has acquired credible intelligence that the ‘LeT is imparting training to 21 selected female terrorists and named the new organization as Dukhtareen-eTaiba. They are undergoing the training at one of its 42 active training facilities in Muzaffarabad in PoK for carrying out terrorist activities in India’.102 The raising of the female terror group was the brainchild of Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi. During the years 2009–12, security agencies arrested a number of female terrorists in J&K. These female terrorists are instrumental in sending the LeT’s messages to its operatives and useful in transporting arms and ammunitions to the LeT cadres. They are employed by the LeT to accompany male LeT terrorists, camouflaging as their wives, which makes the travel of LeT terrorists easy.103

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The group is improvising its skill, performance and adapting to the changing security circumstance with clinical proficiency. With an easy and uninterrupted flow of funding (from Saudi Arabia and the ISI), cadres (from Pakistan), weapons and operational guidance (from the army and the ISI) the group is the ‘civilian extension of the Pakistan army’,104 which is consistently at war with India. The LeT is spreading its tentacles with surprising ease. India not only requires a superbly vigilant intelligence and quick reaction team but it is also indispensable for the country to pre-empt such future threat. The LeT leadership is open about its appearance in Pakistan and considers its activities as equivalent to that of any political party. After the ban of the LeT by the Government of Pakistan its spokesman Yahya Mujahid said, ‘Work is not stopped by banning organisations. When our leader calls, hundreds of thousands of people gather. We are not a terrorist organisation but like any other party. We have no fighting wing, only political ambitions and support for the Kashmir cause’.105 Saeed often makes fiery speeches and touches upon existing political issues in Pakistan. In a speech he once said ‘Allah has told us to make atom bombs. America is telling us not to. Who should we listen to, oh Muslims, Allah or America?’106 Immediately after his release in June 2009, Saeed made his public appearances more frequent and took part in political rallies including campaigns against the Pakistani government’s move to repeal the country’s controversial blasphemy law.107 By 2011–12, the LeT was able to work as a political pressure group in a number of areas in central and northern Punjab. Although it openly denounces democracy covertly, it supports candidates of its choice. Hafiz Saeed openly denounced Pakistan’s decision to give India the Most Favoured Nation trading status. Saeed warned that the ‘LeT will surround the markets where Indian goods are sold’.108 Saeed vowed that jihad to oust Indian forces from Kashmir would continue. The meeting where Saeed was speaking was significant. The gathering under the banner of ‘Difa-i-Pakistan Conference’ was attended by thousands of supporters of the Barelvi and Deobandi parties. The recognition of the LeT by the Barelvi and Deobandi parties and acceptance of its leaders is an indication of future danger. In coming days the LeT would not miss taking centre stage in Pakistan politics as well and pose danger to the security of India. As of 2012, the usual LeT rhetoric that ‘The Jihad is not about Kashmir only, it encompasses all of India including Junagarh, Mavadar (Mavadar is a mistake on the part of the FBI and it is probably Malavar as

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there is no place called Mavadar in India), and Hyderabad etc.’109 still dominates its agenda but over the years the group’s objective has taken a new dimension. The alignment of the group with the ‘Karachi Project’ in 2003 and the failed Denmark attack plot of 2009, famous as the ‘Micky Mouse Project’, has stretched the group’s objective beyond Kashmir. Rhetorically, the LeT has always been proclaiming it will overwhelm the whole of India but until 2000, almost all of its activities were limited to J&K. However, since the group’s attack on India’s Red Fort in New Delhi in 2000, its activities were expanded beyond J&K and stretched towards the mainland India. The LeT’s willingness to own the ‘Micky Mouse Project’ was a clear manifestation of the group’s objective to project itself as the global defender of Islamic pride.110 The LeT’s primary objectives as defined by its pamphlet Hum Jihad Kyun Kar Rehen Hain (‘Why We Are Waging Jihad’) in 1993 has not changed but now it has encompassed new objectives to upgrade the group’s standing and remain relevant in contemporary times. The first and foremost objective of the LeT is to remain focused on its anti-India activities and mobilize the Pakistani people against India.111 This objective is in sync with the Pakistan army’s bleed India agenda. The Pakistan army’s obsession with India found expression in the LeT’s periodical threat against India and its consistent terror activities in various parts of India.112 At a rally of Difa-e-Pakistan on 18 December 2011, Hafiz Saeed announced that ‘jihad was obligatory for Muslims’. He reiterated the LeT’s commitment to Kashmir and said ‘we were with Kashmiris and are with Kashmiris’.113 In the same rally, Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, another JuD leader, further clarified that ‘when LeT cadres head towards India with weapons, no one can resist them’. In a 2011 speech Saeed claimed that the Prophet Muhammad had called for a war ‘against the Hindu so that the greatness of the jihad can be evident and after the success of this jihad (against the culture of pig), after the end of Judaism, after the end of Christianity, after the end of obscenity and irreligiousness, Islam will rule the world’.114 The second most important objective of the LeT as of 2013 is to unify all militants of Pakistan at the behest of the Pakistan army and end the ‘current clash of institutions’ in Pakistan.115 The emerging danger to Pakistan today emanates not from its traditional external adversary to the East — India — but from home-grown insurgency and militancy.116 The Pakistan army’s decision to join the US war on terrorism in Afghanistan had turned almost all Pakistan militant groups against Pakistan. Now as the US withdrawal from Afghanistan

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is nearing, the Pakistan army again want to realign all the militants of Pakistan and direct them against India and use them to spread Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan. The LeT was the only outfit, which never opposed the Pakistan army or attacked any Pakistani target and hence the Pakistan army is using the LeT as a ‘Trojan Horse’ to bring the rest of the militant groups into its strategic thinking.117 The Difae-Pakistan is a Pakistan army-inspired and sponsored organization solely organized by the LeT. As early as July 2011, when there was no trace of Difa-e-Pakistan, the LeT organized a gathering in Multan on 23 July 2011 in which Saeed requested all religious parties and militant groups to unite politically, socially and nationally for the progress of Pakistan. He said ‘we need to end all of our internal grievances and work for the greater good’.118 The new umbrella group Saeed proposed in Multan later became the Difa-e-Pakistan.119 The group’s website is a reflection of the LeT’s objective. The website counted India’s atrocities on Muslims in detail and made India responsible for every single ill of Pakistan. The Difa-e-Pakistan discuss India’s ‘Cold-Start’ doctrine and India’s desire to dominate the region after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.120 The Cold Start doctrine was intended to allow India’s conventional forces to perform swift and unexpected attacks before international pressure could come to bear on India and before the Pakistani military could react i.e. in under 72 hours. The army was using Saeed and his LeT to correct its so-called mistake committed 13 years before by joining the US war on terrorism. In his address Saeed said, ‘The current standoff between state institutions is the result of a sin that we committed 10 years ago by allowing our territory to be used against Afghan Muslims, and until we repent for that grave mistake, we will never be able to overcome these issues’.121 While disagreements existed between the civilian government and the army of Pakistan on a range of issues including Kashmir, the LeT’s objective was to position itself as close to the army as possible. Denying the role of militants like the LeT and wars in the resolution of the Kashmir dispute Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said, ‘Four wars have already been fought on the Kashmir issue but in the 21st century we cannot afford wars and we want to resolve issues through dialogue, diplomacy, prudent policy and national consensus’.122 Contrary to civilian thinking, Army Chief Gen. Kayani said, ‘Pakistani secret agencies maintained contacts with “certain elements” within the hierarchy of insurgent groups’ as ‘Pakistan cannot leave both its eastern and western borders insecure’.123 By aligning the

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group’s objective with the army’s strategic vision, the LeT has made tremendous progress. The next objective of the LeT has been to gather support of rival militant factions and religious parties inside Pakistan124 and project itself as the flag bearer of Islam in Pakistan. While doing so the group wants to exert greater control on Pakistani politics and decisionmaking.125 As part of mobilizing support from other religious groups with Barelvi and Deobandi leanings, the LeT formed the Difa-ePakistan and managed to gather over 40 different religious leaders on one platform. Some of the groups present along with the JuD at the Difa-e-Pakistan platform, like SSP and LeJ, were earlier opposed to the LeT. Although Hafiz Saeed announced that the LeT ‘do not have any political aspirations, nor do we plan to run any election campaign’, his intention to influence Pakistani politics was explicit. He said, ‘We have a broader perspective of the dangers faced by Pakistan, for we want to unify the whole nation on a legitimate and focal point of defending the nation against any external aggression and conspiracy’. Answering a question on how could Difa-e-Pakistan influence the policy making and national issues and what did the JuD believe in as an alternative to democratic politics he explained that ‘Islam emphasizes public opinion and the system of Shura does respect public sentiments and opinions’.126 The final objective of the LeT, rhetoric apart (Nizam-e-Mustafa or Rule of God),127 was to use its fame after the Mumbai onslaught and became an international player. Earlier the LeT had been resisting the call to enter the Afghan theatre of war. However, in 2011, the group shifted its stand and announced that ‘Pakistan and Afghanistan were like twin brothers; whoever tried to harm one, would have to face the people of the other country’.128 This shift was based on two facts, first the US withdrawal was nearing and hence Pakistan wanted a more pro-active role for the militants in Afghanistan and second, the LeT realized the fact that the group could not remain immune to the development at the Western border.129 As part of this strategy, the LeT reactivated its training camps in Afghanistan130 and started participating in attacks against Indian targets in Afghanistan.131 On 7 October 2001, the US started its war on terrorism in Afghanistan and within three months, on 26 December 2001, the US Department of State designated the LeT as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Since then high-ranking US officials have continuously been appraising their home government about the potential danger posed

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by the LeT. Through the regular reporting of the media, countless secret memos and numerous Congressional testimonies, the US government understood very well the danger from the LeT. The appraisals about the LeT to the US government were coming from its army, navy and diplomatic missions in foreign countries. On 22 September 2011, US Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen informed a Senate Committee that ‘It’s not just Haqqani because we’ve also had our challenges with LeT, which is an organization they (the ISI) put in place. So in many ways, it’s the proxy piece here (Afghanistan)’.132 A similar appraisal was provided by US Pacific Command during April 2011. The commander of Pacific Command Admiral Robert Willard informed the Senate Armed Forces Committee that the ‘LeT deliberately targets Westerners and specifically engages coalition forces in Afghanistan. US Pacific Command is keenly aware of the threat posed by this terrorist organization and continues to develop a coordinated multi-national and US inter-agency approach to address this global threat’.133 A year before, in March 2010, Admiral Willard had cautioned the US government about the LeT’s intention to stretch its terror tentacles via sea and in other South Asian countries and said, ‘Right now our concern is the movement of LeT and specifically their positioning in Bangladesh, Nepal, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka’. However, Admiral Willard admitted the fact that, ‘They (LeT) are predominantly a threat to India’.134 Since 2001, the US has been continuously chasing the LeT and its various aliases with the explicit intention of circumventing the group’s activities and capacity. However, the calibrated chase has not yielded any effective result so far because the ISI is guiding the group on how to evade the US chase. The LeT has been changing its name with surprising speed and with effortless ease. In an attempt to evade restrictions, the LeT has established branch offices with different names and adopted a number of aliases. One branch, Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq, is a publicly acknowledged charitable arm of the JuD and has its own web page with photos of hospitals and ambulances. Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation is another such alias of the LeT. The US government asserted that the ‘LeT’s other aliases include Paasbaan-e-Ahle-Hadith, Paasban-eKashmir, Al-Mansoorian, and Al-Nasaryeen’. The US has ‘assess[ed] that LeT and LeT-associated militants will continue to use aliases in order to circumvent restrictions on their movement and operations’.135 According to a US intelligence report, ‘as of January, 2009, the JuD also operating under the alias Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool. LeT’s political

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affairs coordinator Khalid Waleed identified himself in late December 2008 as the chief organizer for a conference for Tehreek-e-Hurmate-Rasool’. On 6 February 2009 the JuD held a Kashmir Solidarity Conference at which it renamed itself Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir (TAK).136 It required a government and intelligence arm of the size of the US’ to track the LeT’s ever-changing nomenclature and restrict its movement. The LeT’s potential to disturb the war on terror in Afghanistan is well understood by the US. This is the reason that the US is continuously alert and likely to remain so about the LeT in future. Pakistan’s intermittent support to terrorist groups and militant organizations threatens to undermine regional security and endanger US national security objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hillary Clinton warned that the ‘ISI continue to maintain ties with a wide array of extremist organizations, in particular the Taliban, the LeT and other extremist organizations and these organizations continue to find refuge in Pakistan and exploit Pakistan’s extensive network of charities, NGOs, and madrassas’.137 After the Headley affair, the US understood the fact that the LeT has the capacity to recruit US citizens to orchestrate terror attacks on foreign soil. However, since India is the primary target of the LeT, the US has always been diplomatic in its action against the LeT. For example, the US has never asked the Pakistani government to stop Hafiz Saeed’s rabble rousing against India and the US as he tours all parts of Pakistan.138 A small reference was given to the public appearance of Hafiz Saeed by the US government in a press release. The US spokesperson said, ‘The US Government is concerned about the recent public appearances of Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed, including at a recent rally in Karachi’. The release further said, ‘We have and continue to urge the Government of Pakistan to uphold its obligations in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1267/1989’.139 Pakistan is taking shelter in a court order, which has freed Hafiz Saeed from his role in the Mumbai attack, and are refusing to take action against him for his role in inciting jihad in Pakistan. US pressure on the LeT in the coming days would be more likely to be diplomatic, bureaucratic and legal in nature than any real hard ground action against the group. On 28 September 2011, the US announced the designation of two LeT leaders and founding members, Zafar Iqbal and Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi, in pursuant to Executive Order 13224. The US government stated that ‘Over the past 20 years, Iqbal and Bhuttavi have been responsible for fundraising, recruitment, and

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indoctrination of operatives. By targeting the core of the LeT’s leadership, today’s action aims to degrade its ability to facilitate its terrorist activities’.140 However, as the announcement clarified, the US had taken 20 years to take action against Iqbal and Bhuttavi. As per the provision, designation of a person by the US treasury department means ‘US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with the designated persons and any assets they may have in the US are frozen’. So this order practically has less effect on the LeT activities as those designated by the US are hardly having any financial transaction with the US. Finally, while the LeT is consistent in its efforts to increase influence and capacity in Pakistan, India has been doing precious little to counter the group. The Indian civil police, which is the primary agency for facing terrorists, has an acute shortage of automatic weapons and ammunitions besides inadequate bullet proof jackets.141 ATS Chief Hemant Karkare died during his encounter with LeT terrorists despite wearing a bulletproof vest. A Mumbai Police report dated 16 September 2004 mentioned that the bulletproof vests did not meet the required standards and could not protect fire from AK-47 rifles. The Mumbai Police were carrying vintage bulletproof jackets from 1993, weighing about 10/12 kg.142 Likewise, the police force had a lack of modern communication equipment/systems while facing a serious situation such as 26/11 when all the communication channels had got clogged. Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan revealed that in the first 15 minutes after the 13 July 2011 serial blasts in Mumbai, he was unable to call his senior most police officers and bureaucrats because mobile networks were congested.143 Such unpreparedness on the part of India was an invitation to the LeT terrorists. Without a real-time threat awareness and response mechanism, India will remain open to being the target of the LeT.

Introduction Ø

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7 The Prosecution Œ

T

he Mumbai attacks were deliberate and coordinated strikes to influence the regional security scenario and to cater to Pakistan’s secret agenda.1 Immediately after the attacks, Indian public opinion demanded unmasking of the perpetrators of the attack, their backers, protectors and funders. India sought to ensure justice against all those who were involved. However, punishing the perpetrators and bringing the attackers to justice was an uphill task for the law enforcment agencies and judiciary. Interestingly, instead of exposing the perpetrators, backers and funders of the attack, the post-attack developments actually exposed, wittingly or unwittingly, the loopholes of the entire Indian system — bureaucracy, politics, police, intelligence, prosecution, and judiciary. Because of the killings of foreign nationals, the Mumbai attacks’ probe became hotter and was constantly under the glare of the international media. All the decks has been cleared for the prosecution of the arrested and accused terrorists and a decision was taken that the case should be tried by a special court rather than by a day to day court. Following a letter sent by the Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), Mumbai, requesting the set up of a special court, the registrar general of the Bombay High Court issued a notification on 11 February 2009 to the Principal Judge of the session court T. V. Nalavade, city Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor and Judge M. L. Tahilyani. Justice Tahilyani had been appointed as the trial court judge and the special court was set up in the Arthur Road jail premises in Mumbai. Mumbai Police wanted to invoke Section 121 of the IPC, which deals with waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the Government of India. Permission to invoke Section 121 of the IPC was granted by the state government but the sanction to apply Section 188 of the CrPC, which deals with an offence committed by a foreign national in a foreign country and then applying it

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to a resulting crime, was to be received from the central government.2 The permission did not come overnight. Mumbai Police received the requisite sanction from central government on 1 April 2009.3 A case of this magnitude also could not move the country’s bureaucracy to expedite the process of granting mere permission to invoke Section 188 of the CrPC act. Finally, charges had been filed against 44 Pakistanis and out of them, Kasab was the only person who was alive and arrested. Nine were killed during the operation and 35 were wanted and charged in absentia.4 Two Indian terrorists suspected of helping the attackers, Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, were arrested from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar respectively and included in the chargesheet. The chargesheet contained the statements of 2,202 witnesses, including those of officers of the FBI. It incorporated forensic evidence, fingerprint reports, and documentary and oral evidence collected in India and abroad. Transcripts of communication among the terrorists and their handlers, Callphonex and GPS records, and purchase and sale details of the Yamaha outboard motor, all used by the terrorists, also constituted part of the evidences in the chargesheet.5 The entire world was observing the prosecution of the Mumbai attacks case. The international ramifications of the case could be judged from the fact that, according to the Crime Branch of the Mumbai Police, foreign nationals of 14 countries — USA, England, Germany, Israel, Canada, Australia, Mauritius, Belgium, Malaysia, Japan, France, Thailand, Italy, and Singapore were killed in the attacks. Five of these nations —the US, Singapore, Italy, France, and Japan — had registered offences in their own countries over the deaths of their citizens.6

The Trial: Cure is Worse than the Disease The trial of the Mumbai attacks continued for 18 months on a daily basis at the trial court. However, it failed to inspire confidence among the people. The trial, closely followed by the international media, delivered an expected judgement. The special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam grossly missed the chance to present facts in a convincing way and failed to appraise the court of the seriousness of the crime.7 Nearly one and a half years after the attack, on 3 May 2010, the special sessions court pronounced its verdict. The judgement termed the Mumbai attack as a war against India. The judgement read, ‘If this is not waging war, there cannot be any other conceivable situation which may

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amount to waging war’ (emphasis author).8 Justice Tahilyani listed a host of reasons as to why it was a war on the nation. These included bringing arms and ammunitions from the seashore of Karachi; hijacking of an Indian fishing vessel; killing the navigator and passengers of the hijacked boat; striking terror by indulging into indiscriminate firing; and intending to commit murders as well as strike terror and challenge the government authorities. The voluminous judgement is a compilation of lofty words and hyperbole, which lacks substance and true wisdom. However, blaming the judgement for absence of substance is not the correct interpretation of the judgement. The presentation of facts by the prosecutor and the lengthy chargesheet are the original sinners as based on which the judgement was pronounced. The chargesheet filed by the prosecution entirely dismembered the larger design and facts of the Mumbai attacks into murder, destruction of properties and illegal possession of explosives etc.9 While doing so the prosecution relieved the real criminals behind the actual crime. The name of the ISI does not figure in the chargesheet and consequentially the name did not figure in the judgement. As it is said, the LeT is also scantily defined in the chargesheet. The terror organization did not draw much indictment from the court. All these calculated mistakes committed by the prosecution made the real purpose behind the crimes obscure and ordinary. The investigative agencies and the prosecutor failed to attach due seriousness to their handling of the Mumbai attack case.10 Surprisingly, Indian law-enforcing agencies and prosecutors handle cases like the Mumbai attacks and the parliament attack on a par with those of any ordinary crime. The structure, purpose, motive, design, modalities and ramification of terror attacks receive the least priority.11 When the prosecutor ignores the broad design of the crime, law enforcement agencies and courts naturally falter in punishing the culprits. The same happened in the case of co-accused Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmad in the Mumbai attack case. The organic disconnect amongst the intelligence and investigative agencies, police, paramilitary forces, bureaucracy and legislature reduced such a high profile case into an ordinary prosecution. The Mumbai prosecution refused to take notice of David Headley who was spilling the beans against the ISI.12 The prosecution was unable to impress the court about the new development.13 The verdict sent Kasab to the gallows14 but that was not a difficult task, as even a frail mind would not have failed to punish Kasab the same way the court did. The entire attack was televised and

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a great deal of CCTV footage is available to prove Kasab’s role. There was no challenge attached to punishing Kasab and apart from sending him to the gallows, the court did precious little justice. The outcome of the court was a pygmied product of a weak and inefficient prosecution. The trial court charged Kasab with as many as 86 accounts of crime.15 Curiously, while pronouncing the death sentence, none of those 86 charges were cited as the reason to send Kasab to the gallows. Rather, his death sentence, as the judge believed, was because of the fact that if he was not hanged, ‘common man will lose faith in courts’. The judge went on to cite another reason why it was necessary to hang Kasab and, surprisingly, this reason was also beyond the scope of the aforementioned 86 charges. The judgement read, if Kasab ‘is not hanged it may lead to another Kandahar’.16 Such observations on the part of the judge made the verdict a frivolous one. Weaknesses in the case prepared by the prosecution were vivid. Apart from the 44 Pakistani accused, the prosecution prepared lofty grounds to add two Indian accused to the case. It was alleged that the inputs and assistance provided by Fahim Arshad Mohammad Yusuf Ansari, a resident of Mumbai, and Sabauddin Ahmed Shabbir Ahmed, a resident of Bihar, were vital for the implementation of the Mumbai attacks mission.17 Both Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed had a history of terrorist activities. On 10 February 2008, Fahim was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police for his involvement in the attack on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, on the night of 31 December 2007–1 January 2008, along with five others including Pakistani nationals, Amar Singh (alias Romej) and Ajay Malhotra (alias Sehwez) and Indian nationals Sohel, Sabauddin and Baba Jung Bahadur. It was alleged that road maps of Mumbai with important buildings marked were seized from Ansari when the Uttar Pradesh Police arrested him.18 Sabauddin, along with another terrorist known as Abu Hamza, was behind the attack and murder of a professor at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in 2005. Later he became the leader of the LeT in Nepal, and aided in smuggling LeT terrorists across the border between India and Pakistan. He also established an LeT base in Kathmandu. The Mumbai metropolitan magistrate had ordered the Mumbai anti-terrorism squad to bring Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, who were languishing in Bareilly central jail in Uttar Pradesh. On 12 December 2008, the sessions court judge of Rampur, Jai Sheel Pathak, allowed the police to take the two accused to Mumbai for interrogation.19

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The prosecution informed the court that during the interrogation of Fahim Ansari, it had come to the knowledge of the investigators that for two months he had been in Mumbai to perform reconnaissance on 12 places in the city for the attackers. The hand-drawn maps were part of the documents in Fahim Ansari’s case file in the Rampur court. He marked places such as the offices of the Mumbai Police Commissioner and the Director General of Police, the Gateway of India, the Taj Hotel, Churchgate railway station, Reliance Energy and AKSA beach. Fahim told the interrogators that at Bait-ul Mujahideen camp, near Shivai Nallah in PoK, he was shown Mumbai on Google Earth and was asked to point out important places in the city. Besides this, Fahim said the Bait-ul-Mujahideen camp commander, identified as Kahfa, was keen to know about the availability of taxis near the DGP’s office. Fahim informed the interrogators that the camp commanders were also interested to find out information about the height of the Mumbai airport wall, wire fencing and the location of the aircraft runway in relation to the nearest building. A total of 21 such sketches seized by the Uttar Pradesh anti-terrorism squad from Fahim Ansari on 8 February 2008 were produced before the Special Court of 26/11.20 The prosecution’s story about Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmad produced before the session court, as it was proved later, was nothing short of a Bollywood movie script. The chargesheet alleged that Fahim Ansari, a resident of Goregaon, Mumbai tried to rent a room at Budhwar Park in early 2008 under the alias of Sahil Pawaskar. The prosecution alleged that he wanted the room near Budhwar Park only to facilitate the attackers who landed at this location. Unable to get a room at Budhwar Park, Fahim rented a house at Patthe Bapurao Marg in South Mumbai.21 The prosecution further alleged that to camouflage his nefarious activities, Fahim secured admission at the Soft-Pro Computer Educational Council, near the Bombay Stock Exchange. This place is located very close to the Budhwar Park. It was from these two places Fahim conducted detailed reconnaissance of the targeted locations. The chargesheet said that after the reconnaissance of the attack sites, Fahim took all the materials and travelled all through Kathmandu to hand over those materials to Sabauddin Ahmed. Bharat Thakur, an autorickshaw driver in Mumbai, and Nooruddin Sheikh, another Mumbai resident, were produced as witnesses, who were present in Kathmandu during the changing of hands of the reconnaissance materials during an unknown date in January 2008. The prosecution presented

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to the court that after receiving the materials Sabauddin Ahmed, who was a very important functionary of the LeT in India, got in touch with his LeT bosses Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Abu Kahfa. He informed them about the receipt of these important documents, so essential for the success of the Mumbai mission. The LeT co-conspirators then arranged for fetching the maps and so on from Sabauddin Ahmed at Kathmandu.22 The prosecution had produced a handmade sketch of Mumbai from the trousers of one of the dead terrorists, which was identical to the sketches seized by the Uttar Pradesh police from the custody of Fahim Ansari. At the outset, the evidences against both these accused were overwhelming. On a cursory look, the case was more like an open and shut case. Kasab’s culpability was recorded in the close circuit cameras at the crime scene and after that, he made a voluntary confession before a judicial magistrate admissible before the law. So the prosecutor had little problem in proving the guilt of Kasab. But the case of Ansari and Ahmed was different and no evidentiary supports, like that of Kasab, were available to the prosecution. Probably the case of Ansari and Ahmed was the first challenge before the special public prosecutor and the investigating team in the Mumbai trial. Buoyed by the euphoria and public profile of the case, the prosecution presented doubtful criminal evidences against Ansari and Ahmed. However, soon the myopic consideration of the prosecution backfired and the special session court acquitted both the co-accused Ansari and Ahmed of all charges in its final judgement.23 The court found the argument of the prosecution on Ansari and Ahmed dubious. The judgement offered detailed explanations to the question of why both these accused were acquitted.

Acquittal of the Co-Accused: What Went Wrong? The sessions court judge examined in detail the prosecution’s charges that Ansari and Ahmed were also part of the conspiracy. The judgement said that both the accused were not physically present in Mumbai on 26 November 2008. Questions were raised in the judgement on the issue that the prosecution had examined one solitary witness, Nooruddin Sheikh, and not Bharat Thakur, despite the charge that both of them were allegedly present in Kathmandu during the changing of hands of the maps.24 The public prosecutor offered a gullible explanation about why he did not grill Bharat Thakur. He told the court that there was

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no reason to disbelieve the evidence of Naruddin Sheikh; hence he did not find any reason to cross-examine Thakur. The cases of the Indian accused were further weakened when the public prosecutor failed to produce any documentary evidence of Sheikh’s visit to Nepal. The prosecution also admitted that Bharat Thakur had disappeared and they were unable to trace him.25 All these feeble explanations raised suspicions in the mind of the judge. Not only did the judgement go against the prosecution but it also signalled a conspiracy by the police and prosecution in their endeavour to punish Ansari and Ahmed, which ultimately weakened the case further. A case of the stature of the Mumbai attacks, which was strong enough to punish a person even remotely connected with the case, was wasted under the burden of effacing evidences. The judgement said, ‘Naruddin Sheikh was approached by police officer Mr Raju Mohite on February 2, 2009 in presence of one Mr. K. K. and Mr Sarfaraj and that Mr. Mohite had suggested that one of the Muslim friends of Fahim Ansari would have to give evidence against him in the case’. During the cross examination it came to the notice of the judge that Naruddin Sheikh has not been working anywhere since February 2009 and that he had no source of income since then and he was on the payroll of the Crime Branch of Mumbai police with `6,000 rupees per month by way of subsistence.26 The jigsaw puzzle on the charges and counter-charges continued and remained unsolved until the end. Police officer Prashant Marde stated in his evidence that the sealed packet containing maps recovered from the pocket of the deceased terrorist was opened during the course of investigation on 28 January 2009 and the map was sent for the opinion of handwriting experts. The handwriting experts concluded that the maps discovered from the pocket of the deceased terrorist and the maps recovered from Fahim Ansari’s case file were prepared by the same person.27 One eyewitness, who was present when the deceased terrorist was brought to the hospital for a post mortem, said that there were bloodstains on the right side of the terrorist’s trousers. The eyewitness also confirmed that there were more bloodstains on the left side than on the right side. The court in its observation said: ‘[i]f at all the sketches were seized on the night of 26 and 27 November of 2008 from the trouser of the deceased terrorist, would it be possible to remain in the right side pocket of the trousers without any blood stains’.28 The court further said that the stretcher on which the deceased terrorist was brought was C-shaped, so

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it was natural that blood must have collected in the centre of the stretcher as the trousers produced before the court were stained with blood. In such a circumstance, blood must have reached the right pocket of the trousers where the map was found. The court accepted the argument of the defence lawyer Advocate R. B. Mokashi, that there were no wrinkles of any nature on the paper of the map recovered from the deceased terrorist.29 Mocking the prosecution the court observed the alleged map was in the pocket of the deceased terrorist for nearly a week and during this time, the terrorist had changed his position frequently from one boat to another and from one place to another. Despite such burdensome travel and daredevil acts, the sketch remained wrinkle free and unblemished in the pocket of the deceased. This further raised the doubt of the court. The alleged doctoring of evidence was supported by other planted documents. On the issue of Ansari’s rented house and admission to a computer education centre in Mumbai, the court said, ‘the prosecution was failed [sic] to provide the original agreement and only a zerox [sic] copy of the agreement is provided. Non-production of original agreement without any explanation and production of colored zerox [sic] copy as an original document is very fatal to the prosecution case’. So the story of Ansari’s accommodation at Patthe Bapurao Marg, Mumbai, was rejected. The next piece of evidence against Ansari was the oral evidence of Vivek Saxena, manager of the Soft-Pro Computer Institution, where Ansari allegedly admitted to camouflaging his reconnaissance activities. However, the sessions court found that the prosecution did not collect the attendance sheet of the students. The only material produced before the court was the application form and the inquiry form allegedly filled by Ansari.30 Hence, the court was convinced that all evidences produced before the court to connect the Mumbai crime with Ansari and Ahmed were not free from doubt. Finally the court rubbished the prosecution and made a scathing observation on the evidences saying ‘since the conspirators had used best technology like VoIP, Yamaha Enduro machines and GPS and better colored maps are available on websites like Google Earth and Wikimapia, a rustic sketch map did not fit in with the scheme of the conspirators’.31 In the end, virtually everything went against the prosecution in the trials of Ansari and Ahmed. Evidential materials planted by the prosecution were either busted by the defence lawyers or by the court. The circumstantial evidences, which were also painted by the prosecution with glowing colours also failed to stand judicial scrutiny. In a

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case of such intensity, the prosecution resorted to the normal petty practices of relying on police force, which is notorious for the planting and forging of evidences in criminal cases. The prosecution failed to realize the fact that unethical practice would not excite the judiciary. Consequentially, India not only lost the case but there was a severe loss of face as well.

Special Public Prosecutor: Spoilt Chance The weak presentation of the case by the prosecution was a telling testimony to the fact that the Mumbai trial was treated on a par with that of a petty crime. The prosecution failed to realize the enormity of the case, despite the fact that the attack was a war against India and the international media, and foreign governments were monitoring the trial case. A closer examination of the judgement proves the fact that Justice Tahilyani did not appreciate some of the allegations against Ansari and Ahmed. The session court judge also left some of the accusations against the duo undecided. It is utterly surprising that Justice Tahilyani rubbished all supporting documents against the two accused but refused to comment on the materials seized by the Uttar Pradesh police and produced before the special session court. The session court left the matter with the alibi that the matter was subjudice in the Rampur court in Uttar Pradesh. Although the map theory was completely rejected by the sessions court, the court preferred silence on the discovery of similar maps in the possession of Ansari in his Rampur court file, which pre-dated the Mumbai attack. The judgement also did not deal with the fact that Ansari had obtained a Pakistani passport based on bogus documents produced before the Pakistan authorities.32 The evidence against Ansari was as solid as it sounds. Nevertheless, the prosecution completely failed to highlight those points, as the prosecutor was busy planting fabricated documents to support the conspiracy theory. No wonder the special public prosecutor lost such a vital case for India. A better lawyer would have tackled the matter differently. Since the Mumbai terror attacks was not an ordinary crime, by placing the trial in the same league, the prosecution ignored the significance and importance of India’s national security. There is an international legal provision for dealing with Mumbai-like crimes known as the ‘Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE)’, which is described as ‘a revolutionary strategy for prosecuting war criminals’ based on the

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principle of accomplice liability or the common purpose doctrine.33 This is a novelty of modern legal jurisprudence, which was very much applicable in the Mumbai terror trial. The JCE principle holds members of a group responsible for each others’ criminal acts. ‘If three people commit a bank robbery and one fatally shoots a person in the process, for example, the law considers all guilty of murder’.34 The public prosecutor, who had been dealing with local criminal cases for years, was unaware of the notion of JCE. The investigative agencies had also done a local kind of investigation in this case, despite the cooperation of international police agencies like the FBI, Scotland Yard and the National Police Agency35 of Japan to mention a few. The entire 11,280-page chargesheet basically dealt with the loss of lives and property in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks.36 It is a compilation of the post mortem reports of 166 persons, oral testimony of 2,202 persons, details of loss of property, ballistic evidence of blasts and firing, and details about the materials carried by the terrorist to the attack sites. Chikako Taya, a former Japanese judge who was also a judge for the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), presided over the famous Prosecutor v. Radoslav Branin at the ICTY. The notion of JCE was involved in this case. Justice Taya, now a Professor at the Hosei University of Tokyo, was checking if the Mumbai attack case fell under JCE. I had the chance to accompany her to the Mumbai residence of special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam at the Residency Hotel, Dadabhai Naoroji Road, Mumbai. During the course of Justice Taya’s interview with Nikam, another journalist, N. Ganesh of Rediff. com dropped in. Justice Taya suggested to Nikam that the Rediff.com journalist could also take an interview simultaneously as she would benefit from the questions of the journalist. Nikam not only agreed to the suggestion but also volunteered to translate anything which the Rediff.com journalist might ask him in Marathi. Nikam was visibly sleepy during the meeting. It was scheduled during the post-lunch session at around 4.00 p.m. and Nikam must have been tired from the day’s work when Justice Taya asked him a plethora of questions. Nikam hardly provided a single satisfactory answer. ‘Do you know about JCE?’ Justice Taya asked. His answer was in the negative. Justice Taya started asking question after question on the role of the ISI, the Pakistan army and the LeT in the Mumbai attack. All the questions were either deflected or answered in the negative by Nikam. On the question of the LeT and the ISI, Nikam admitted

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his limitation and asked how he could investigate a matter which came under the jurisdiction of Pakistan. Justice Taya wanted to know more about the shady investigation into such a high profile crime. Nikam said he was not associated with the investigation process as it is the policy of India’s judicial system to dissociate investigation from prosecution. Why was the LeT not adequately dealt with in the chargesheet, asked Justice Taya? Nikam answered that ‘it has adequately been dealt with in the chargesheet’.37 Justice Taya protested and said only one paragraph in the entire chargesheet was devoted to the LeT. Nikam explained that as a criminal lawyer he was well versed in the criminal proceeding of the case. As he was out of the investigation team, he did not have much information and the union home ministry might have more information, which would satisfy the quest of his visitor. What surprised me was that the public prosecutor, who was the voice of the government in the court, did not have much information about the criminals who had committed the crime. There was hardly any doubt about the fact that the union home ministry had shared as few incriminating documents as possible with Nikam. The reason for the union home ministry’s reluctance to share damning details on the Mumbai attacks case could be understood from the fact that Nikam was not a government lawyer. He was a private lawyer hired by the Maharashtra government for the Mumbai trial. A less known fact about the Mumbai trial was that the special public prosecutor was on contract with the Maharashtra government and not answerable to the Indian public. When the Rediff.com scribe heard this from Nikam, he inquired again ‘are you really under contract’? Mr Nikam clarified, ‘yes, I am under contract; one who will take orders from others. There are lots of troubles when you have to follow too many government officers’ orders, which I don’t want’. He said there was no one above him to pass any order as in the case of government lawyers, who were bound to take the government’s diktat.38 And as a private lawyer, Nikam was answerable to none. When the Rediff.com journalist asked what motivated him to take such challenging cases, Nikam promptly answered, although in a lighter vein, the ‘money’ he received out of his contract. On a serious note, Nikam said, he liked to take challenges and that was why he had taken this case. But in the Mumbai trial, he failed to face the challenges. An unimpressed Justice Taya asked how he got the job of special public prosecutor for the Mumbai trial. Nikam said the question could be best answered by the government about how they hired him. But he

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explained that ‘before deciding on him as the special public prosecutor, the government must have relied on an Intelligence Bureau report on his track record, his merit and his capacity to handle such cases’. Comprehensively disappointed with the special public prosecutor, Justice Taya, while coming out of Hotel Residency, told me privately that the government should have appointed a better lawyer as Nikam was clueless about many things. Justice Taya bemoaned the fact that such a high profile and international case was delegated to a local lawyer who was only concerned about the loss of lives and damage to property. While doing so the big picture was missed. The structure, the design and the motives of crimes had never been established and the actual members of the crime were never apprehended. There was an organic disconnect amongst the various branches of law enforcing agencies in India. The mutual disengagement of investigation and prosecution had helped the two co-accused go scot-free. The public prosecutor should not be involved in the investigation process,39 said the report of the Law Commission of India. But there is no bar on the prosecutor to demand some evidence, some answers and some facts from the investigating agencies. The Supreme Court, in the matter of R. Sarala v. T.S. Velu, said, ‘Investigation and prosecution are two different facets in the administration of criminal justice. The role of the public prosecutor is inside the court, whereas the role of investigation is outside the court’. Normally, the role of the public prosecutor commences after the investigation agency presents the case in the court on the culmination of the investigation. The Supreme Court observed that, ‘Involving the public prosecutor in the investigation is un-judicious as well as pernicious in law. The Investigation Officer cannot be directed to consult the public prosecutor and submit a chargesheet in tune with the opinion of the public prosecutor. Public prosecutor is appointed for conducting any prosecution, appeal or proceedings in the court. He is an officer of the court. The public prosecutor is to deal with a different field in the administration of justice and cannot be involved in investigation’.40 However, there is no restriction on appointing an efficient prosecutor by the government of the day, who would understand the various facets of the case. The investigating arms must prepare the case with integrity and with utmost professionalism. The Law Commission Report cautioned the government that, ‘any scheme of appointment of Public Prosecutors, Additional Public Prosecutors as well as Assistant Public Prosecutors, must result in the creation of an independent body of prosecuting officers, free

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from the executive and all external influences, free from police and must be able to enforce the rule of law without fear or favour, advance public interest in punishing the guilty and protecting the innocent’.41 Ujjwal Nikam, the son of barrister Deorao Nikam, comes from Jalgaon in North Maharashtra. His big break came in 1993 when he was appointed public prosecutor for the Mumbai serial blasts case. Since then, Nikam has been the government’s lawyer on half a dozen high-profile cases. He went on to handle various high-profile cases like the Gulshan Kumar and Pramod Mahajan murders, the Gateway of India blast, the Kherlanji Massacre of Dalits, music director Nadeem’s extradition and finally he managed to get the high profile Mumbai attacks’ trial. He has been provided with Z-plus security by the Government of India due to his involvement in high profile trials. In his 30-year legal career, Nikam has secured many life imprisonments and death penalties. Through this time span, the Hotel Residency in Mumbai has become his second home. In 2010, he managed to bag a home in Versova, Mumbai under the chief minister’s 2 per cent quota.42 During the last week of December 2008, Nikam was appointed as special public prosecutor for the Mumbai trial. How Nikam was appointed for the Mumbai attack trial is still a mystery. During and after the trial he used several colourful phrases and metaphors while indicting the arrested terrorist. He quoted Sanskrit verses, Marathi writers, extracts from Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and even William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. On judgement day he announced that he ‘brought justice to the families of 166 victims who died in the 26/11 attacks as it is a victory for the entire nation.’ Whimsically he demanded that the judge should ask Kasab to cough up a huge compensation of `155 crore. ‘That is the damage to property Mumbai suffered on account of the terrorist attack. We have calculated it’,43 said Nikam. The surprising claim of Nikam left Justice Tahilyani a little confused, wondering who was going to foot the bill. Nikam was unfazed and replied that ‘the LeT will’. When quizzed about how he expected a terrorist organization to pay the damages to the Indian state, Nikam replied, ‘that is our headache. We will explore diplomatic channels’.44 He was even wrong in his calculation of economic loss. The Indian economy suffered an estimated US$80.8 million loss in the immediate aftermath of the 26/11 attack.45 Reducing the attack, which was judged as a war against the nation, into mere damage of property was a disservice to the nation.

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Bit by bit all his arguments were junked by the judge on Ansari and Ahmad. But after the delivery of the order by the special session court, a fully prepared Nikam came out of the court room to show a picture of Kasab entitled ‘You Are Guilty’ as if Kasab’s guilt was in question and by convicting him he had achieved a very difficult success. Nikam was flamboyant even after the judgement when TV channels were flashing the news that two co-accused were acquitted of all charges. He said, ‘They (Ansari and Ahmed) were not honorably released’, but the court gave them the benefit of the doubt.46 He pledged to challenge the verdict at a higher court. Yasmin, wife of Ansari, was happy and beaming with the pronouncement of the judgement. She countered Nikam saying, ‘In my eyes, it is an honorable acquittal because even the evidence that was found on him was planted by the Crime Branch police’. She questioned, ‘Why did not they (crime branch) accuse him of providing maps to the attackers at the first instance instead of waiting for the fourth or fifth remand?’ Only Home Minister P. Chidambaram knows why his ministry shared limited information with Nikam. The Union Home Ministry was sending dossier after dossier to Pakistan with incriminating documents on the issue of involvement of the ISI and LeT in the Mumbai attack when Nikam was arguing the case against the perpetrators of the Mumbai conspiracy. The lack of coordination between the state and union governments had blurred the big picture of the case. In a secret cable the US Ambassador in India, Timothy Roemer, informed his home government that Home Minister P. Chidambaram had stated that India might not be using impeccable evidences against the perpetrators of the 26/11 attackers because of the suffocating legal intricacies and opaqueness in the evidence process.47 The cable communicated on 26 February 2010 revealed that Chidambaram told the FBI Director Robert Mueller that he ‘understood from his discussions with US Attorney General Eric Holder that the Government of India cannot use any information provided by the US Government at this time in Indian prosecutions’. After a whopping two years and three months (Feb. 2010), the Government of India was unable to piece together all information pertaining to the Mumbai attacks and worse, declined to use some of the vital evidence gathered or procured in the case. Chidambaram said that the Government of India would not file formal charges against Headley until the trial of Kasab was finished for fear that

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Kasab would use the Headley charges as a way to delay conclusion of his own trial.48 The anxiety of Chidambaram could easily be understood, as the Indian investigators had no inkling about Headley, the kingpin of the Mumbai attack, until the US authorities arrested him. All of Chidambaram’s officials remained submerged in their efforts to embarrass Pakistan and punish the lone arrested terrorist. The resolve of the Government of India and the Government of Maharashtra differed greatly from each other. While the Maharashtra Police filed 12 cases at different police stations and the case continued in a Special Session Court at the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai, the NIA filed four chargesheets at a Delhi court, which were being heard by Special Judge (NIA) S. P. Garg. The intricacies and dilly-dallying in this vital case had sent the matter into an unending spiral of legal intricacies and delay. After a prolonged trial, the Special Sessions Court delivered an oversimplified judgement, where the court had only been able to punish a criminal whose crime was publicly audio-visualized and as clear as the sun in the sky. The court faltered in the face of the singular challenge of arriving at a convincing conclusion about the involvement of the two co-conspirators, Ansari and Ahmad. The investigative agencies or the prosecutor never took the issue of apprehending and punishing the real big fish behind the attack. Added to that the special court refused to accept the role of David Headley, the most vital LeT terrorist, arrested in the US during the course of the trial of the case. After the verdict of the special sessions court, Chidambaram said: ‘The court has convicted certain accused. It has also acquitted two accused. That shows the independence, fearlessness and integrity of the court’.49 In the wake of the acquittal of Ansari and Ahmad, officials in the security establishment admitted the fact that rigid criminal laws were forcing investigators to be creative with evidence. Investigators complained that under the present acts governing evidence and criminal cases, which trace their origin to Lord Macaulay and India’s colonial era, they are forced to cook up evidence, and falsify case narrations. Intelligence officials argued that, ‘If Headley is extradited to India today and tried under normal criminal laws, theoretically he could go scot-free’.50 This is because there was no material evidence available in India to prove Headley’s role in the Mumbai attack, and Headley could retract his confession in court.

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The Indian security establishments believe that, in terrorist cases, getting irrefutable evidence is near impossible. This belief is an oversimplification of an India-centric age-old problem. Indian security agencies function with archaic equipments and in the most unprofessional way. Modern technology to intercept and eavesdrop into the safe havens of criminals, forensic analysis of material evidence in investigations, and other modern scientific equipment to gather irrefutable evidence against criminals is still to reach the the Indian security establishment. There is hardly any trace of modernity in the investigative methodology of the Indian police. Instead of addressing the problem, the security establishment defends their acts of inefficiency. There is no secret about the fact that the public prosecutor and the investigation team suffered from collective myopia. As for terror crimes such as the Mumbai attack, it is very important to make clear the purpose of crimes. As Justice Taya said, ‘Kasab said in his statement that he sympathized with the plight of Muslims in Kashmir, and by inflicting damage on India (economically prosperous Mumbai) through martyrdom he is assured to go to heaven. It is close to the fact that he espoused with the common purpose of this terror attack although he does not understand well because of his educational background. I think Kasab is a member of JCE according to the notion of JCE. But I must confess that the common purpose of the Mumbai terror attacks is not made clear by the prosecution’.51 The JCE would be very efficient for terrorist crimes, as in the case of the Nazi holocaust and war crimes like in former Yugoslavia. The efficacy of JCE in investigating and effectively punishing big fish behind actual terrorist crimes could have been applied to the Mumbai attack case. As for terrorist crime, much is said for its prevention, and even the Afghan War against the Taliban is said to be for the future security of the US and the world. But punishment without fail is very important for prevention. Punishment itself is not enough and the legal structure of punishment should reflect appropriately the social structure of crime. The legal structure of counts of indictment of such a crime, which are thought to be applied to ordinary crimes, which occur in ordinary life, does not appropriately reflect the actual social reality of the crime, of its gravity, of its structural whole, of each criminal’s role. Therefore, bodies like JCE must be employed in such cases.

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JCE has been applied in some ICTY cases and in the Nuremberg trials. The constituting elements of JCE are, first, plural persons espoused with a common purpose, that is to say, the existence of a common purpose and plural persons knowing the existence of the common purpose, being willingly espoused with it. Second, those persons contribute the realization of common purpose, but this contribution is not required to have a causal relationship with the result, and is different from committing crimes, for example training. Third, execution of crimes.52 Common purpose would be, for example, to make part of Bosnia an ethnically pure land. Common purpose does include in its meaning the committing of crimes such as murder, deportation, persecution, whatever is necessary to reach its common purpose goal. And the execution of crimes can be carried out by persons outside of JCE as well, that is, persons who are not espoused with the common purpose. The special public prosecutor was unaware of the concept of JCE. But Justice Tahilyani was well aware of it. The judgement made a lucid description of common purpose despite the fact that the prosecution never mentioned a single word on JCE. The judgement said, ‘As far as common intention is concerned, the law has been clearly laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the recent judgement in the matter of Chaman & Anr v. State of Uttaranchal. Section 34 has been enacted on the principle of joint liability in the doing of a criminal act. The liability of one person for an offence committed by another in the course of a criminal act perpetrated by several persons arises under Section 34 if such criminal act is done in furtherance of a common intention of the persons who join in committing the crime’. The session court judgement further said, ‘In order to bring home the charge of common intention, the prosecution has to establish by evidence, whether direct or circumstantial, that there was plan or meeting of mind of all the accused persons to commit the offence for which they are charged with the aid of Section 34, be it prearranged or on the spur of moment; but it must necessarily be before the commission of the crime’.53 The judgement readily appreciated the notion of JCE but the prosecution had completely missed their chance. The judgement also referred to Ashok Kumar v. State of Punjab (AIR 1977 SC 109), where the Supreme Court had said, ‘It is not necessary that the acts of the several persons charged with commission of an offence jointly must be the same or identically similar. The acts may be different in character, but must have been actuated by one

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and the same common intention in order to attract the provision’.54 The sessions court made transparent admission about their willingness to consider JCE in the trial but the prosecution failed to present the concept or legal framework of JCE during the trial of the case.

The Trial and the Truth The prosecution indicted the LeT and the involvement of LeT members was also confirmed by Kasab. Only superficial details about the organization were provided to the court. Unlike the FBI, which in its indictment against a group of LeT terrorists in the USA v. Randall Todd Royer case,55 made a strong presentation against the LeT, the Mumbai prosecution, despite the strong evidence, failed to produce a similar charge sheet. Based on the information produced by the prosecution, the judgement also observed very basic facts about the LeT.56 The case presented by the prosecution mostly talked about the LeT’s agenda in Kashmir and how it was banned by India, the US, the UK and the UN. Surprisingly, the investigation and findings of the federal and state governments were divorced from each other. The federal investigation was highly concentrated on the Headley testimony but the provincial investigation never mentioned the existence of Headley. The federal government often asked Pakistan to hand over serving military personnel and ISI officials involved in the Mumbai conspiracy but the state government did not find the involvement of any serving military officials or ISI officers from Pakistan. Instead of providing hard and irrefutable evidence, the prosecution relied heavily on information available in the public domain. Apart from the 10 terrorists who were sent to Mumbai to kill and maim people, the prosecution made a strong case against 35 other Pakistani nationals, all members of the LeT, who were charged in absentia. Out of the 35 wanted accused presented by the prosecutor, 20 were found guilty by the sessions court. In the absence of any other credible evidence, the judgement heavily depended on a single piece of evidence, ‘the confession of Kasab’, to pronounce the guilty order of the 20 accused. The judgement said, ‘Kasab had given vivid and graphic description of the training he and others had undergone and described about the conspiracy’. Based on this confessional statement, which was ‘corroborated by the independent evidence adduced by the prosecution’, the court pronounced

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20 wanted accused guilty. However, when Kasab confessed the role of Ansari and Ahmed, the court refused to take a similar view.57 The judgement fumbled by its own contradiction. While the confession of Kasab was accepted by the court as gospel truth to award punishment to 20 accused, part of the same confession was rejected. A threadbare analysis of the entire event proved beyond doubt that there was a severe lack of professionalism and commitment from almost all stakeholders including the court, investigation agencies, prosecution and government. In the absence of clarity in the whole affair, the outcome of the case was short lived and redundant. The prosecution’s indictment was entirely based on the confessional statement of Kasab. But Kasab’s confession did not remain unchallenged for long. The first person to disown the confession was none other than Kasab himself. Kasab’s counsel K.P. Pawar said that the confessional statement had been manipulated and fabricated to make him a scapegoat.58 Pawar further alleged that to hide their failure to prevent the attack, the police were cooking up stories against Kasab. Pawar’s argument, which sounded illogical and misplaced, was rejected by the court. However, the court took cognizance of the argument of Ansari’s counsel Shahid Azmi (later Mokashi) and Ahmed’s counsel Ezaj Naqvi. Both the defence lawyers outwitted and overawed the special public prosecutor and collectively they buttressed the special public prosecutor’s claim. They argued with near total success. Ahmed’s counsel Ezaj Naqvi, a soft-spoken young lawyer, had defended his client in a calibrated manner and said he believed, ‘the attack on Mumbai was carried out by Pakistan to divert world attention from Afghanistan, where its army is fighting with the Taliban. The attack was a conspiracy against India and there is no role of Indian citizens in this attack. The arrest of Ahmed was only to hide the failure of the police force’.59 Naqvi as a young man had visited many of the African countries like Morocco and Libya, where he had seen how Muslim society was in deep turmoil. He felt that by the grace of the Almighty, such turmoil was absent from the Muslim inhabitants of India. He considered India’s rule of law a great gift. Although not so forceful in his argument, Naqvi won the case against Nikam, not because of the merit of his brief but because of the ill-fated trick of the special public prosecutor. Shahid Azmi, the counsel of Ansari, during his short lifespan had a tough and rough career record. Very forceful in his argument, Azmi said, ‘there are too many holes in the bucket of the prosecution’. In a

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jovial tone, he said, ‘I have near punctured all the ballooning claims and accusations of the prosecution (against my client)’.60 His argument and cross-examination were proved vital as the court exonerated Ansari of all charges. But Azmi did not remain alive to hear the news. Azmi’s life came to an end at the age of 33 on 11 February 2010, when he was shot four times in the chest and head by four men at his home in Mumbai. Azmi had a very disturbing past behind him before he was gunned down by goons. He was arrested at the age of 15 for allegedly plotting to kill a right-wing Hindu leader in the wake of Hindu–Muslim riots in Mumbai. He was found guilty of attending terrorist training camps in Kashmir and spent seven years in jail in Kashmir. But Azmi never lost hope and he used his jail term to study law. His jail years in Kashmir were not eventless. Before being acquitted by the Supreme Court, during his jail days in Kashmir he had shared a cell with Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Maulana Masood Azhar — two of the three terrorists who were released in exchange for hostages of Indian Airlines IC-814, which was hijacked from Kathmandu to Kandahar in 1999. Speaking before his death, Azmi said: ‘I had seen policemen killing people from my community. I have witnessed cold-blooded murders. This enraged me and I joined the resistance’. He could not live to hear that he had successfully defended his client in the high profile Mumbai trial. After the 6 May 2010 judgement, following the judicial procedure, the trial court forwarded the matter to the Bombay High Court for confirmation of the death penalty of Kasab. A copy of the 1,522-page judgement, proceedings of the year-long-trial, evidence tendered by witnesses and their statements on affidavits as well as the original copies of exhibits and documents tabled by prosecution was compiled and sent to the Bombay High Court. The state again appointed Ujjwal Nikam, who was the special public prosecutor in the trial court, as the special counsel to argue on confirmation of the death sentence awarded to Kasab and also to give submissions on appeals against the trial court’s order acquitting Ansari and Ahmed. After the trial court verdict, Kasab had the option to file an appeal in the High Court within 30 days of being held guilty by the court. He did so on 4 June 2010, challenging the verdict, and sought a legal aid panel to fight his case. Kasab’s plea for a lawyer was forwarded to the High Court Legal Services Committee. The Bombay High Court

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appointed Amin Solkar and Farhana Shah to represent Kasab in his appeal against the death sentence.

The Bombay High Court Judgement The division bench of Bombay High Court heard the matter for nearly seven months starting from August 2010 to February 2011. The arguments of the state as well as Kasab on the death penalty began from 17 October 2010 on a day-to-day basis and ended on 7 January 2011. While Amin Solkar and Farhana Shah defended Kasab, R. B. Mokashi and Ejaz Naqvi defended Ansari and Ahmed respectively. The judges made a quiet visit to the crime scene to ascertain facts and recreate the circumstances before pronouncing the judgement. Confirming the death sentence of Kasab as pronounced by the lower court was not much disputed. There was nothing new in the prosecutor’s case produced before the High Court, despite the fact that the NIA already possessed incriminating documents after the pronouncement of the trial court verdict.61 The NIA interrogated Headley during the month of June 2010 but those materials were not produced before the High Court. Nevertheless, the original challenge to convict Ansari and Ahmed was still pending before the prosecution. When the High Court opened on 21 February 2011 to deliver the judgement, not many Indian citizens expected a miracle. The court upheld the death sentence of Kasab, terming his crime as the rarest of the rare, and dismissed the appeal field by Kasab.62 However, the prosecution again faltered in bringing justice as far as the alleged crime of Ansari and Ahmed was concerned. The prosecutor had not been able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Ansari and Ahmed were also involved in the offence. The court ordered that ‘Since almost all the pieces of evidence adduced by the prosecution against Ansari and Ahmed are found to be doubtful, the benefit of doubt must go to the accused’.63 After a prolonged trial on such a high profile case, the only person brought to justice was Kasab. India’s legal system is based on the assertion that it may go any way. The architecture of the Bombay High Court, in a telling testimony on how the justice delivery system works in India, had built a beautiful edifice to tell the story of this justice system in India. It is important and interesting to dissect the justice delivery system in India, through the eyes of the architecture of the Bombay High Court

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building. Indian jurist Fali S. Nariman in his autobiography narrated the story in the most delightful of manners. The architect depicted three representations of the justice delivery system in India. The first one is the Victorian model, the second one is the Indian model and the third one is the model of the realist and cynics. In the Victorian model, justice is depicted (in stone) as a lady in a flowing gown. She is standing with a blindfold over both her eyes. In her up-raised hand she holds a sword, which threatens the wrongdoer with dire punishment for his wrongful conduct. In her half-raised left hand, Lady Justice holds a pair of scales, so as to weigh the evidence led by the contending parties before the court. The Victorian conception is based on the assumption that justice is blind, that she performs her task without fear or favour, and that she does not go by the appearance of the parties arraigned.64 But the questions which arise are, ‘How do you see which way the scales of justice tilt, if your eyes are blindfolded? How do you wield the sword of punishment with your eyes deliberately closed?’ There is every possibility that, ‘In the blind fury for doing justice, you might strike at the innocent party and not the guilty one. And, the delay involved in the process of arriving at a decision will freeze the right arm and shoulder of Lady Justice, as also her left elbow, holding aloft the sword and pair of scales’.65 Contrary to the Victorian model, the Indian experience of how true justice ought to be depicted by the architect of Bombay High Court is the portrayal of justice as a lady in flowing robes with a sword in her right hand and a pair of scales in her left hand. In this Indian ideal of justice, the lady is not blindfolded. So, ‘With clear eyes (and clear head) Lady Justice sees things with unbiased vision, looking intently at the ever tilting scales held in her left hand. She holds the hilt of the sword in her right hand. The tip of the sword is resting on the ground near her feet, so that her right arm and shoulder are not frozen stiff by the necessary delay involved in the trial. After considering the evidence, Lady Justice is left free to wield the sword swiftly, and strike the guilty party. Being clear eyed, she cannot by mistake or accident strike the innocent’.66 However, the justice delivery in India is not always fair, impartial and judicious as envisioned by the architect. Coming back to the judgement, the Bombay High Court inked the confirmation of the acquittal of Ansari and Ahmed. So the engagement of Nikam by the state as a special public prosecutor at the High Court again proved detrimental. Nevertheless, few facts about the whole process of prosecution did not come to the knowledge of the

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people. What was the legal fee of Nikam and what was the outcome of his appointment as the special public prosecutor? Swati Deshpande, the Mumbai Correspondent of the The Times of India, reported that Nikam got the lion’s share of legal fees, that is a hefty, `9 lakh. He was entitled to a special fee of over `10,000 a day. However, the fee for each of Kasab’s court-appointed defence lawyers was probably a 10th of Nikam’s compensation.67 But these were all known expenses. There were hidden expenses attached to his appointment as the public prosecutor, which included his accommodation in Mumbai’s Residency Hotel, his Z-plus security and all the other perks and entitlements. But despite all his failures, Nikam was unfazed and after the pronouncement of the Bombay High Court’s judgement he became poetic. He addressed the media and said, ‘Badle tumne rang bahut, bahut badle nakab; Fansi takh hamne tumhe la hi diya Kasab’68 (Your clever tactic of changing colours and masks could not save you from my determination to bring you to the gallows). Meanwhile, after the terror attacks, the NIA was given the responsibility of investigating the wider angle of Mumbai attacks and the involvement of Headley and Rana. The NIA registered a case on 11 November 2009 against Headley and Rana in Delhi for allegedly plotting terror attacks in India. As fresh facts started emerging about the involvement of officers from the Pakistan army and the ISI, it filed not less than four chargesheets in the same case. On 21 July 2010, a Delhi court issued non-bailable warrants (NBW) against five Pakistanis, charging them with facilitating terrorist attacks in India — Karachi residents Sajid Mir and Major Hashim, Pakistan army officers Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali, and PoK resident Ilyas Kashmiri. As time passed, public anger about the Mumbai attacks also dissipated and the Mumbai trial went cold. It was reduced to only a ritual to continue with the attacks trial, which would cater to an army of government servants, lawyers and bureaucrats for many years to come.

Supreme Court: Appeals Are Accordingly Dismissed After Bombay High Court’s confirmation about the death sentence, Kasab’s case was moved to the Supreme Court. On 29 July 2011, Kasab approached the Supreme Court asking for his death sentence to be overturned in the Mohammed Ajmal Mohammad Amir Kasab @ Abu Mujahid v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal appeal nos. 1899–1900 of 2011. The request by Kasab had been filed via jail authorities in

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Mumbai, where he had been held since the attacks, and lodged with the secretary general of the court. On 2 September 2011, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the plea of the Maharashtra government against the acquittal of the two accused in the State of Maharashtra v. Fahim Harshad Mohammad Yusuf Ansari & another, Criminal appeal nos. 1961 of 2011. A bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam, however, made it clear at the outset to the state government that, ‘Having regards to the seriousness of the matter, we issue notice but you (Maharashtra government) have a weak case,’ the bench said while issuing notice to Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed.69 Since the matter was related to the death sentence, the Supreme Court examined ‘the materials on record first hand, in accordance with the time-honoured practice’ of the apex court. The apex court comes to its ‘own conclusions on all issues of facts and law, unbound by the findings of the trial court and the High Court’.70 The Government of Maharashtra was represented by the flamboyant Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium, who recently on 10 July 2011 resigned from the position of Solicitor General of India when union communication minister Kapil Sibal, himself a senior lawyer, appointed Rohinton Nariman as the lead lawyer of the Union Government at the Supreme Court in the infamous 2G Spectrum bribery case. Subramanium took great umbrage and resigned from his position. In the Mumbai attack case at the Supreme Court, Subramanium was assisted by Ujjawal Nikam, the Special Public Prosecutor.71 Nikam, who had aired his reservation about representing the Maharashtra government at the High Court in an interview not only ran the full course at the Bombay High Court but also came to the Supreme Court to assist a senior lawyer. The verdict of the Supreme Court came on 29 August 2012 and dismissed both the appeals on expected lines. Kasab’s death sentence was upheld. The appeals of Maharashtra Government against the acquittal of Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed were dismissed rather cheaply with only two paragraphs devoted to them in the 398-page judgement The bench said, ‘We are of the view that the evidence of Naruddin Shaikh is completely unacceptable. The evidences of the other witnesses also do not inspire confidence insofar as these two accused are concerned’.72 At the outset the bench was categorical in its announcement that the apex court is unbounded by the findings of the trial court and the High Court. But in the matter of Fahim and Sabauddin, the bench said:

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The trial court and the High Court have considered the evidences relating to these two accused in far greater detail and have given very good reasons to hold the prosecution evidence unworthy of reliance to hold such grave charges against the two accused. We are in full agreement with the reasons assigned by the trial court and the High Court for acquitting the two accused of all the charges.

The court never cited detailed reasons nor produced any fresh argument about the acquittal and concluded that the opinion of the previous two courts ‘is the only possible view. We find no merit in the appeal and it is, accordingly, dismissed’.73 Curiously, the original confabulating question, that while Kasab’s confession was accepted as the gospel truth for all practical purposes by all the three courts, why did his statement on Fahim and Sabauddin not impress any of the courts, remained the same. The apex court maintained, ‘We are clearly of the view that the confessional statement recorded by the magistrate is voluntary and truthful, except insofar as it relates to the other two accused, namely, Fahim and Sabauddin’.74 It followed in the footsteps of the previous two courts in surgically separating the confession of Kasab on Fahim and Sabauddin, terming it as falsehood without citing the reason. Courts normally test the judicial validity of prayers in the appeals and order accordingly. The apex court followed this maxim and remained strictly within the boundary of the appeal. The court disposed of the matter with great care. Nevertheless, a case of such enormity was clubbed in the league of any ordinary criminal case and the matter was disposed. The apex court observed that this was a case of terrorist attack from across the border with: [a] magnitude of unprecedented enormity on all scales. The conspiracy behind the attack was as deep and large as it was vicious. The preparation and training for the execution was as thorough as the execution was ruthless. In terms of loss of life and property, and more importantly in its traumatizing effect, this case stands alone, or it is at least the very rarest of rare to come before this Court since the birth of the Republic.75

Despite such realization, the matter was treated ordinarily and the apex court acted as an extension of the previous two courts. The grand design and the purpose of the attacks were never established. The motives were never traced. The involvement of big fish was never dealt with. No questions were raised about David Headley, Abu Jundal, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi

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and most importantly about the Pakistan army and its intelligence agency, the ISI. A nebulous faith was attached to this case at all the courts by all stakeholders that these above mentioned actors were foreign to the Mumbai attacks and hence did not warrant examination and punishment. What is far more surprising is everybody accepted this joint effort. The apex court’s 398-page judgement is full of what Fali S. Nariman described as ‘Purple Patches’. Nariman quoted Justice Krishna Iyer and said, ‘When you are covering as with a garment some weighty or important matter you should sew on one or two purple passages so as to attract the attention of those who are unfamiliar with it’.76 ‘Purple Patch’ (another term for purple passage) has been explained by Lord Denning.77 The bench observed that: Hotel Taj is an iconic hotel, part of the history of Mumbai. It is reported that it was at the Taj Mahal Hotel ballroom that, on February 20, 1918, at her eighteenth birthday party, Ruttie had accepted Mr Jinnah’s hand in marriage while the band was playing the Chopin tune, So Deep is the Night. It is also reported that both Mr Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan, and Mrs Sarojini Naidu, the President of the Indian National Congress, often held court at Taj Mahal Hotel. One wonders what Quaied-eAzam would have thought of the terrorist attack on his favourite city in the subcontinent and especially on Taj Mahal Hotel, with which he had a personal relationship of a very intimate kind.78

Such observations were only meant for the gallery. Jinnah’s own capital Karachi and his created country Pakistan is now an example of a ‘failing, falling and crumbling state that is teetering on the verge of collapse’.79 When Pakistani terrorists could do it to their and Jinnah’s own country, Mumbai’s iconic Taj Hotel was no deterrent for them. The Purple Patches did not end there. ‘Mr Jinnah also had an intimate connection with Mazgaon, where the bomb planted by two terrorists in a taxi exploded, killing three (3) and wounding nineteen (19) people. It is reported that Mr Jinnah devoted Thursday afternoons to visiting the grave of his wife Ruttie at the Khoja Shiite Isna’ashri Cemetry, situated at Mazgaon, Mumbai’,80 said the judgement. The observation is unconnected with the intention of the terrorists, who had never thought of blowing the taxi up at Mazgaon. Had the taxi driver not ventured to the area the blast could have occurred at another place. The materials submitted to the trial court, high court and apex court left no doubt about the clarity in the intention of the terrorists

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to inflict maximum damage, Mazgaon or no Mazgaon. Court documents said that the RDX-laden IED planted by Abu Shoib and Abu Umer during their journey from the sea side at Budhwar Park to the Leopold Café in the taxi was exploded ‘when the taxi cab reached opposite BPT, Mazgaon killing instantly the two lady passengers and the unsuspecting taxi driver’.81 Connecting the blast with Jinnah’s memory was trivial. Likewise, ‘Kasab had also planted the RDX-laden IED in another taxi which exploded on the Western Express Highway opposite the City Swan Club, Vile Parle (East). The explosion killed the taxi driver as well as a passenger who happened to be a lawyer by profession’.82 The bench made a brilliant observation on the conduct of TV channels during the attacks. ‘All the channels were competing with each other in showing the latest developments on a minute to minute basis, including the positions and the movements of the security forces engaged in flushing out the terrorists’. The bench again correctly observed that while their handlers kept updating the terrorists about the movement of security forces, the security forces were blind about the position of terrorists. Consequently, the operations got delayed, and provided vantage positions to the terrorists increasing the risk of casualty for the security forces. The apex court bemoaned the invocation of right to freedom of speech of the TV channels and said that in such a situation freedom of speech ‘would be totally wrong and unacceptable’. It was observed that showing such shots in posterity would have saved the security forces’ extra efforts and risk to life. ‘But, in that case the TV programmes would not have had the same shrill, scintillating and chilling effect and would not have shot up the TRP ratings of the channels’. The bench was clearly of the opinion that TV channels had put the ‘national security in jeopardy’.83 It was a flawless observation, where the court was categorical in deciding the culpability of the TV channels. The court had the chance to impose fines, if not jail terms, onto the erring channels. Curiously, the court preferred not to impose even a token fine and it became another ‘Purple Patch’. How many channels would adhere to the apex court’s observation in the event of repetition of such an unfortunate event was no secret to the bench. Similarly, the bench’s observation that since the invading terrorists were claiming to be members of the Indian Muslim community, the attacks of the terrorists had the potential to unleash communal conflagration, is difficult to believe. The court felt that:

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[i]f the appellant (Kasab) had not been caught alive and the investigating agencies had not been able to unravel the conspiracy fully and in all its devious ways, the terrorists might have passed as Indian Muslims and that would have led to devastating short-term and equally debilitating long-term consequences. It would have caused a cleavage of distrust and suspicion between communities and disturbed the communal peace and harmony of the country. It is not impossible that conflagrations would have erupted in different parts of the country which the governments would have found difficult to contain.84

This theory is not based on sound logic and firm judicial opinion. The arrest of Kasab was not the solitary evidence available to the investigating agencies. As the court term the volume of evidence as a ‘small mountain’,85 even without Kasab, the Indian audience would have been adequately convinced within no time that the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan and the killers were from Pakistan only. The bench utilized the opportunity to speak about the Indian Muslims as well. It observed that: Indian Muslims may have a long list of grievances against the establishment. Some of the grievances may be fanciful, some may be of their own making and some may be substantive. Nevertheless, no Indian Muslim would even think of venting his grievance like an animal, killing, maiming and wounding innocent people; his own countrymen. This is because he is not only loyal to his faith and community but equally loves his country and fellow countrymen.86

It is natural and generally believed and accepted in principle that the inhabitants of a country love it. At the same time, it is difficult for a person or group of persons to speak on behalf of an entire community. Such claims are fraught with sociological difficulties and practical uncertainties. Communities never operate in unison. The Malegaon blast case and Samjhauta Express blast case, where Hindu extremists were accused of bombing innocent people, were examples of a community moving in strange unpredictable directions. Abu Jundal in the Mumbai attacks case is another such example. The Aurangabad arms haul case, which is discussed in detail in this chapter, is another and there are other numerous heinous examples to substantiate the disagreements amongst the community members. So making a blanket observation was unjustified. After the judgement of the apex court, Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed came out as taint-free and Kasab’s execution entered an unending spiral of political and executive wrangling. As the 52nd prisoner on

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death row, Kasab appealed to the President of India for mercy. After the end of such a hugely unparalleled case, the result left the international and home audience high and dry. Kasab’s death sentence was no succour for India. In any case, he came prepared to die. But his death was delayed and amidst airtight security, on 21 November 2012, four days before the fourth anniversary of the Mumbai massacre, Kasab was hanged in Pune’s historic Yerwada jail. All the 9/11 storm troopers were killed too. Some conspirators like Khalid Sheikh Mohammad were captured by America and sent to Guantanamo Bay for trial. But the US not only never stopped its search for the mastermind of the attacks but also attacked the launching pad for the 9/11 attacks, i.e., Afghanistan. In the case of India, it is difficult to replicate such an example. A lacklustre response is an invitation to future attacks.

Rana’s Acquittal: An Assessment While the Mumbai trial went wayward in India, another conspirator, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, was acquitted by a US court for his involvement in the Mumbai conspiracy. Headley and Rana are a few of the best overseas products of the LeT. Both of them are diehard cadres of the group and while supporting the Mumbai conspiracy they knew well what they were doing.87 Their agenda was not confined to Mumbai. Immediately after the attacks on Mumbai, they shifted their focus on Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper. When the investigation into the Mumbai attacks got hotter, the LeT developed cold feet on the Denmark plan. Buoyant with their Mumbai success, the duo found a new sponsor for the surveillance of Jyllands-Posten. They convinced Ilyas Kashmiri. In his coded communication Headley wrote to Rana that ‘I don’t care that if I am working for Microsoft or I am working for any GE or Philips’, which means he does not care whether he works for Ilyas Kashmiri’s Brigade 313 or Hafiz Saeed’s LeT, as long as he helps carry out attacks.88 After the 11 September 2001 attacks, the US proscribed the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen on 25 September 2001 and Jaish-e-Mohammad on 26 December 2001. The HuJI came out almost unscathed. HuJI leader Qari Saifullah and Ilyas Kashmiri disputed on the issue of whether to follow the ISI’s dictate to work under JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar or not. Qari Saifullah was operating from Afghanistan until September 11 and was not averse to the ISI’s dictate. Ilyas Kashmiri, although he remained under the umbrella of HuJI, created Brigade 313. The name was taken from the Holy Battle of Badr (200 miles from Makkah and 80 miles from Medina), where

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Muhammad along with his 313 followers faced his enemy in 624 CE. The exact date of the formation of Brigade 313 is not known but it was formed before the September 11 attacks. On 15 December 1999, a Rashtriya Rifles unit of the Indian army in J&K had killed one Sher Khan, who was described as the chief commander of the newly formed Brigade 313 during an encounter in the Marot forest area of Surankote, in Kashmir. The Brigade 313 is the most secretive and obscure terror organization in the world with no clarity on the formation and leadership of the group. When Headley was arrested in Philadelphia on 3 October 2009, the FBI was not aware of Rana, or at least pretended so. Headley spilled the beans and informed them about Rana. Surprisingly, the FBI did not show any haste in arresting Rana. The agency took a full fortnight and made the arrest on 18 October 2009 with a long list of criminal charges. As discussed in the earlier chapter, the FBI filed a chargesheet against Headley on 11 October 2009 but the content was not known to the world until the Manmohan–Obama talk in Washington on 26 November 2009. When the chargesheet was made public, it was clearly mentioned that Rana had supported Headley in all his enterprises. More surprises were waiting when Lorenzo Benedict, Special Agent, FBI filed the chargesheet on 21 October 2009 at the Chicago court. In the 48-page chargesheet, the FBI special agent implicated Rana for conspiracy to provide material support for the attack in Denmark. When the chargesheets of Headley and Rana were made public, newspapers and mainstream media around the world, especially in India, highlighted the role Rana played in the Mumbai attacks, citing the FBI chargesheet as the source of their information. However, it was amazing that the first chargesheet of Rana and Headley did not bear the name of Mumbai. The FBI’s scheme came to light only after the acquittal of Rana from the Mumbai conspiracy charge. The FBI agents knew that if they implicated Rana in the Mumbai conspiracy and if there was a judgement against Rana in a US court, it would be hard on the part of the US to deny extradition of Rana to India. That was why the case was deliberately kept weak from the very beginning. Similarly, Headley’s chargesheet also did not mention his role in the Mumbai attacks.89 The only mention about India found in the chargesheet was when the agent wrote about a proposed LeT attack plan in India after the Mumbai attacks and the involvement of Rana in that plot. The FBI claimed that Rana was involved in India related conspiracies only after

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the Mumbai attacks during the months of July–August 2009, when Headley was in India on his tenth and final visit.90 The LeT attack on Mumbai killed 136 Indian citizens and 28 foreigners from 15 countries. Out of the 28 foreigners, six were American citizens. When the Headley and Rana affair surfaced, international news media as well as foreign governments started taking interest. The American press started asking uncomfortable questions to the US government. The US government succumbed under the growing international pressure and was forced to include Headley’s and Rana’s name as conspirators in the Mumbai case. Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the US attorney, filed an additional memorandum at the Northern District of Illinois on 14 December 2009, more than two months after the arrest of Headley, before the District Judge, Nan R. Nolan. The US government attorney informed the court that, ‘Headley was initially charged in a separate complaint relating only to the plot to attack the newspaper but has now been charged both with that plot and the 26 November 2008 attacks in Mumbai’.91 It is mentioned in the same complaint that investigation about Rana’s involvement in Mumbai was continuing. The gestation period of the FBI for Rana’s indictment in the Mumbai conspiracy case could shame an elephant. (On 11 April 2011, the US attorney informed the court that Rana had assisted Headley to use his immigration business as a cover for Headley’s extended stays in Mumbai). The April indictment further detailed the discussion Rana held with Major Hashim in Dubai about the Mumbai assault just before the Mumbai attacks.92 The original court battle in the US began during the month of May 2011, nearly two years after the arrest. Before delving into the detail of Rana’s trial in the US, it is essential for the reader to understand the US court system, which is far detached from the system practised in South Asia. Article 3 of the US constitution bestows the right to every US citizen to be tried by a jury where the punishment of the crime may be six months of imprisonment or beyond. The jury trial is a step before the judgement to be announced by the judge. In this system the jury either makes a decision or does all the ground work to collate the facts later to be applied by a judge. India also had a jury system until 1960 when the government decided to abolish it. In 1959, Kawas Nanavati, an IPS officer of Bombay, killed Prem Ahuja, his friend with whom his wife Sylvia developed illicit relations. The jury, affected by the principles of morality and values and norms shared by

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society, acquitted Kawas Nanavati with a majority decision of 8:1. The Greater Bombay Sessions Court acquitted him but referred the matter to the High Court. The High Court quashed the judgement and sentenced Nanavati to life imprisonment, which was later upheld by the Supreme Court in 1961. Later, Nanavati was pardoned and released but this case forced the government to relook into jury trials and end them in 1960. The jury system is a close cousin of the traditional Panchayat system in India. But the Panchayat is not compulsory, functions orally, and is not part of the court system. The comparison between Jury trials and Panchayat is because of the fact that both systems are a step ahead of a judicial trial by a judge. This is an amazing system by the Americans, which finds its expression at the Grand Jury, the criminal petit jury, and civil petit jury. Each is guaranteed in the federal courts by the US constitution, and every state uses them. Commenting on the American jury system Harry Kalven Junior, an American jurist, and Hans Zeisel, the Chicago University professor, wrote in 1966 that: [t]he Anglo-American jury is a remarkable political institution. It recruits twelve laymen, chosen at random from the widest population; it convenes them for the purpose of the particular trial; it entrusts them with great official powers of decision; it permits them to carry on deliberations in secret and to report out their final judgement without giving reasons for it; and after their momentary service to the state has been completed, it orders them to disband and return to private life.93

The jury is thus by definition an exciting experience in the conduct of serious human affairs that, virtually from its inception, has been the subject of deep controversy. Even 50 years after Kalven and Zeisel’s writing, their words are still echoed in the jury verdict of Rana. So, on 18 May 2011, US District Judge Leinen Weber selected a 12-member jury from a pool of 38 after questioning them about their understanding and views on Islam, citizenship and terrorism. Few biographical details have been made available about the jurors or the six alternates chosen; their identities were kept secret. More than half of the 12 jurors were black, and four of them were women. The selected jurors had to follow dos and don’ts — they were not supposed to discuss the case among themselves and outside court and in front of family and friends. They had to avoid reading news related to the case in newspapers, television and magazines and avoid doing any independent research on the Internet. The jurors had to put aside any preconceived notions.

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The trial of Rana began on 23 May 2011 in Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Building before a 12-member grand jury. The trial was being closely watched worldwide. It continued for two weeks and the jurybegan deliberations on 8 June 2011. The jurors were provided with copies of the audio and video tapes along with transcripts, besides a set of all the exhibits including the large number of email exchanges of Rana, Headley and many others related to the case, which were shown as evidences by the defence and federal attorneys during the trial.94 As expected the arguments offered by the prosecutor and defence attorney were complex in nature and ambiguous in understanding. Victoria Peters, the US attorney, opened her argument and said that this was a simple case of two plots ‘one that was carried out and one that was mercifully stopped’. The US attorney informed the grand jury that Headley was a treasure trove of terror information who could tell them about several high-ranking terrorist leaders and had identified more than two dozen terrorist targets around the world. Peters reminded the jurors of a recorded 7 September 2009 phone conversation in Urdu between Rana and Headley, in which Rana suggested the Mumbai gunmen should be honored. The jurors were also informed about a Dubai meeting Rana described having had with the architect of the Mumbai attacks. In this conversation Major Hashim had given him the warning in Dubai that the attack was imminent. In her closing argument on Rana, Peters said, ‘He is no fool. He knows exactly who David Headley is and what David Headley is about’. The argument got hotter when the defence lawyers started their arguments. The plea of Peters was lost in oblivion when Rana’s lawyer, Charles Swift, amongst others, started his argument. It is normal for lawyers and judges to argue both sides of the same case if the reward is sufficient. Rana carefully hired Charles Swift, who had a long career with the US Naval Academy, and who was a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1987 until May 2011. That meant that he was both a uniformed officer in the navy and a licensed and practising attorney. Swift hogged the limelight when he succeeded in defending Salim Ahmad Hamdan, the driver of Osama bin Laden, in 2007. Hamdan was arrested in 2001 in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo Bay, and released by a US court in June 2007. What surprised all was that Swift was a military officer who sued his commander-in-chief (President Bush) and the secretary of defence on behalf of a Guantanamo Bay detainee.

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In a blitzkrieg attack Swift opened his argument talking more about Headley’s admitted guilt and intentions than the intentions and actions of his own client. He informed the jury that Headley was working as a DEA informer when he started training with the LeT, balancing his work for the militants, the ISI and the DEA the same way he balanced his three wives.95 Headley also worked on the phones and the Internet in an attempt to draw major terrorists out from hiding by ‘hitting a home run’ or throwing a ‘Hail Mary pass’. Headley had allegedly offered to return to Pakistan to try to plant a chip on Ilyas Kashmiri, so that the American authorities could attack him using drones. When the government refused Headley’s request to be dispatched to Pakistan and his emails failed to produce any arrests, as a final attempt he agreed to testify against Rana.96 This was a wonderful story told by the defence counsel. On the issue of Rana’s contact with the ISI, the defence team, led by prominent human rights lawyer Charles Smith, informed the jurors that Rana, a Pakistani army medical doctor, refused a posting in Siachen and deserted the army in 1997. This made him an absconder in Pakistan, liable to be jailed if he returned. The ISI officer Major Iqbal exploited this weakness of Rana, and sought Rana’s help for Headley in Mumbai in exchange for his safe return to Pakistan. The defence lawyers argued that Rana’s friend who had used his business venture to plot the Mumbai assault had deceived Rana. Swift told the jury that this trial was not the first time the witness had pleaded guilty in order to avoid severe sentences, as he had pleaded guilty and testified against friends in two drug convictions cases more than a decade ago.97 The intention of the defence lawyer was to plant doubt in the mind of at least one of the jurors so that his client might get an acquittal. Rana was constantly in touch with Headley during his Mumbai visit and he was advised by Headley to join the LeT much before the Mumbai attacks. Rana also contributed to the LeT causes and knew very well about the activities of the LeT. Apart from that, it is doubtful whether Rana had exclusively sent Headley for business purposes, as he never produced any result in Mumbai and Rana never snapped his business ties with Headley in India. Rather, in a coded communication, both the criminals talked about their interest in other business organizations like Microsoft, GE or Phillips, which in code language meant HuJI, al-Qaeda and the LeT. Rana’s acquaintance with too many LeT members and his meetings with Major Hashim in Dubai just

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before the Mumbai attack are testimony to his involvement in the Mumbai conspiracy.98 The international media had closely followed the trial against Rana where Headley was a star witness. During the trial, Headley accused the ISI of supporting the Mumbai attacks. During this time the US was inflamed by the discovery of Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town. The jury’s verdict surprised everybody, including Rana. It found Rana guilty of supporting plans to attack the Danish newspaper, but acquitted him of the more serious charge of helping to plot the Mumbai attacks. The jury also found Rana guilty of a third charge, which involved providing support to the LeT before and after the Mumbai attacks.99 The split verdict dealt a blow to both Rana, who got a 30-year jail term, and the US government, which expressed disappointment at the jury’s decision involving the Mumbai attacks’ charge. The reaction of the Indian government was predictably helpless and all sound and no fury. The government spokesman said that India was disappointed with the verdict but further clarified that the Indian government ‘understand [s]’ the different judicial systems in both the countries. The spokesperson further clarified that the NIA, which was proving the case, was just waiting for the US court’s verdict and as the verdict was now out, the NIA might file charges against Rana in an Indian court. Lacklustre as it sounds, India has severe limitations in trying international criminals. The Indian government’s ignorance is palpable as the home ministry’s statement shows. In its statement, the ministry wondered ‘if the US government may file an appeal against the verdict as Rana’s lawyers have already started to do that’.100 Mocking the ignorance of India, a US Justice Department official told the Press Trust of India that ‘Rana may appeal against his conviction on the two accounts, but the government cannot appeal the jury’s finding of ‘not guilty’ on the Mumbai count’.101 This is the practice in the US where the accused may appeal against the jury but the government cannot. This is amazing and quite contrary to the Indian legal system, where both the government and the defendant can appeal against court rulings. As has been discussed earlier, the jury’s verdict was imminent since day one, considering the stage-managed chargesheet of the FBI in which the agency did not even charge Rana on his role in the Mumbai attack. The jury’s verdict, although a disappointment for India, was certainly not a surprise.

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The irony of the judgement was that the jury found Rana guilty of assisting the LeT before and after the attack, but surgically detached him from the Mumbai operation, in the midst of his comprehensive support to the LeT. The final verdict, pronounced on 17 January 2013, sentenced him to jail for 14 years. The verdict, with all its lacunae and voids, failed to convince the public, not to mention observers. The US claim that the ‘verdict demonstrates US commitment to hold accountable not only terrorist operatives, but also those who facilitate their activities’102 in the backdrop of dropping Rana’s name from the Mumbai conspiracy was an oxymoron. Such verdicts could only encourage the conspirators. The US normally takes a long time to realize its follies. A few of its recent examples are its support to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. They realize their follies once the monsters start killing their own creators.103 Similarly, arming the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets is now proving counterproductive for America’s war in Afghanistan. The US closed its eyes when IC-814 was hijacked by Pakistani militants. In exchange for the safety of the airline’s passengers India released Omar Sheikh, who in turn funded a good portion of the 9/11 attackers’ expenses and later killed The Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl. The acquittal of Rana would also possess the potential to ignite a similar outcome, as the Americans never learned any lessons from their past follies.

From the 26/11 Control Room in Karachi: Abu Jundal Intelligence agencies, while analysing the recorded voices, accents and content of the conversations among the terrorists in operation in Mumbai and their handlers in Pakistan, thought that one voice was not unfamiliar. The tone and tenor of that lone voice was not Urduized, i.e., in the accent of Pakistan, but Hindized, the accent of India. Enforcement agencies and journalists provided their expert opinion and concluded that the person having a Mumbai accent must be from Maharashtra, if not Mumbai. On the intervening night of 19 and 20 June 2012, the federal security forces netted the person at Delhi’s international airport after a 43-month long international manhunt. He was Syed Zabiuddin Ansari, a native of the Beed district of Maharashtra, 311 kms away from Mumbai. Zabiuddin Ansari, notorious for his terror activities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and

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Saudi Arabia had 23 alias names; out of those Abu Hamza and Abu Jundal are the most commonly used aliases. Abu Jundal had a long and peculiar terror career before his luck ran out and he was arrested. He had already obtained training at the Indian Technical Institute104 to be an electrician and was admitted into the local Navgan College to pursue his graduation when his name cropped up first time in 1999 as an accomplice of Mohammad Amir Shakeel Ahmad, the local SIMI kingpin. Shakeel Ahmad had radicalized then 18-year-old Abu Jundal and inducted him into the SIMI fold.105 After 1999, Jundal left his studies midway, remained untraceable for some time before again being noticed by the Gujarat Police in 2001 at the Darul Uloom Falah-e-Darain, an Islamic seminary at Tarkeswar, Gujarat. At the seminary, he was received and further radicalized by Mohd. Aslam Mohd. Latif Sardana, a resident of Thana Mandi in Rajouri district of J&K. Latif Sardana had been at the Tarkeswar seminary since 1993, when his family sent him from Kashmir to Gujarat with the hope that he would stay away from the influence of terrorist groups in the province.106 As per the wishes of his family, Sardana grasped Islamic teachings at Tarkeswar but could not part with his radical ideas. He developed links with the LeT, motivated youth at the seminary, sent impressionable minds to Kashmir for training and became a leading recruiter for the LeT. He sent Abu Jundal to Poonch’s Hil Kaka area of J&K sometime during 2001, where his brother Khalid Sardana received him and inducted him into the LeT training.107 There is no documentation on the activities of Abu Jundal from 2001 until February 2006, except his own confession to the police that he travelled to Nepal in October 2005 to plan attacks against India. On 18 February 2006, Abu Jundal made a sophisticated suitcasebomb along with his accomplices Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh and Zulfikar Fayyaz Kagzi, which was planted at Mumbai station on the Ahmedabad-bound Karnavati express train. Next morning, a Sunday, at 1.43 a.m., a deafening explosion rocked Ahmadabad railway station. The odd hour and unscheduled blast saved many lives, upset the terrorists and injured 25. The passengers of the train had their share of luck as the error caused the blast to occur 12 hours later than its scheduled time by which the train had already reached its destination. Quickly the cleaning staff sprung into action and kept the suitcase on a stack of plastic crates containing cold drink bottles near a kiosk on platform number two of the station.108 Abu Jundal had many other plans after this abortive attempt to kill Indians.

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In 2004, Rahil, a resident of Mumbai’s Grant Road area, provided a fake passport and procured a 30-day pilgrimage visa to Iran for Fayaz Kagzi. From Iran, Kagzi travelled to Pakistan to finalize the delivery of the arms and explosives into India.109 The motive behind the use of the arms consignment is not clear. There are two versions about the motive. As per the Gujarat Police, the consignment was meant to kill Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat. But Delhi Police claimed that the terrorists wanted to bring forward the Mumbai attacks by two years. Not long after the abortive train bombing by Jundal and his accomplices, on 8 May 2006, an armed consignment comprised of 16 AK-47 assault rifles, 50 hand grenades, nearly 4,000 ammunition rounds, 43 kg RDX explosives and several magazines for guns was on its way to Aurangabad.110 The consignment was coming from Karachi via Nashik to an Aurangabad storehouse. After a tip-off, an ATS team of the Maharashtra Police chased a Tata Sumo (Indian motor vehicle) and an Indica car on Chandwad-Manmad road near Aurangabad.111 The weapons and explosive materials were seized; three persons were arrested on the spot and 18 subsequently. Police interrogation of one Shamsher Khan led to the revelation that Abu Jundal had sent `14 lakh with Khan for the transport of the arms and ‘for implementing a plan’. Jundal himself was driving the Indica car, and managed to dodge the high-speed chase, smuggling himself to a LeT safe house in Bangladesh.112 The exact timing of his departure to Bangladesh is not known hence his role in the serial train blasts of 11 July 2006 in Mumbai was highly suspected. Five years later investigations into the 7 July 2011 train blasts, however, took the Maharashtra ATS away from Abu Jundal to 10 alleged Pakistani infiltrators from the LeT.113 With the help of the LeT, Abu Jundal reached Pakistan from Bangladesh, adopted a new name, Kaasif, opened an automobile shop, got married and settled into the life of a Pakistani in the garrison town of Rawalpindi. His ITI skill augmented his earning, which he described as handsome but being a senior functionary he was entitle to a monthly payment of `12,000 from the LeT.114 Jundal’s stature amongst LeT cadres was unusually high. After a brief hiatus, he started using his Indian contacts by way of telephone communication to undertake terrorist activities. In early 2007, RAW picked up the voice of one Kaasif from Pakistan, whose identity was a mystery until January 2008. After the terrorist strike at the CRPF camp of Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, on 1 January 2008, IB officials apprehended a suspect from Nepal

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and during interrogation the suspect informed Indian officials that Kaasif was the nom de guerre of Jundal. Kaasif’s communication with his Indian contacts had been regular since 2007.115 After the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, the security agencies sensed that the voice of one handler had a Maharashtrian accent. ‘Tell your government that we are displaying peace. The guilty government is watching this. They must understand that it is trailer only’,116 it said. Arrested Mumbai terrorist Kasab informed his interrogators that one Abu Jundal, an Indian national, had trained him at one of the training camps.117 By 2010, the intelligence agencies rounded up other arrested jihadists languishing in various jails of the country to confirm the fact that Abu Jundal was indeed Syed Zabiuddin Ansari. Under intense international pressure, Pakistan was forced to raid the LeT camp at Beit-ul-Mujahedeen in PoK in December 2008 from where the Pakistani security agencies arrested Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. Abu Jundal was also in the firing line at the camp but the ISI intervened and his arrest was averted.118 Once out of police ambit, Jundal resumed his work and in 2009, in one of the communications intercepted by the Indian agencies, agents heard his plan to attack American and Israeli targets in India. CIA and Mossad were alerted about Jundal’s plan. When the Mumbai investigation got hotter, Jundal was advised to leave Pakistan for Saudi Arabia with the twin purposes of saving him from arrest and to recruit Indian Muslims who visit Mecca for Haj. A Pakistani passport number — QL1790941 — was arranged for Jundal’s use on 28 January 2009 with the pseudonym Riyasat Ali. Pakistan made all arrangements for the safety of Jundal. His National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis was issued with the added facility that ‘he is entitled visa free entry to Pakistan’. Such facility is only issued to people with high contacts, testimony to Jundal’s acquaintance with high officials of the ISI.119 In August 2010, Jundal went to Saudi Arabia but regularly came back to Pakistan to meet his wife and his LeT bosses. Meanwhile, Indian security agencies secured the copy of his passport and passed it on to the CIA. An alerted US placed the name of Riyasat Ali in its terrorist interdiction programme Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (PISCES). Pakistan does not have an indigenous border management system, hence the US sponsored PISCES is installed in all its entry and exit points. Through this system, the US came to know that Abu Jundal was in Saudi Arabia. After many

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such visits to Saudi Arabia, Jundal landed again in the country in April 2011. This time the CIA alerted RAW about Jundal’s presence in Saudi Arabia. India exerted maximum pressure on the Saudi King for the arrest of Jundal to which the Saudi intelligence service, Ri’asat al-Istikhbarat al-’Amah consented and in June 2011, Jundal was arrested in connection with a forgery case. Moments after the arrest of Abu Jundal, Pakistan got into action and told the Saudi government that Jundal travelled to Saudi Arabia with a Pakistani passport and as he was wanted in Pakistan, the Saudi government must deport him to Pakistan. Pakistan wanted to thwart an Indian attempt to get a hand on Abu Jundal. The arrest of Kasab and Headley had already revealed damning details about the planning and operationalization of the Mumbai attacks and the arrest of Jundal could shed new light on the composition of personnel and activities inside the control room in Karachi. A year passed since Jundal’s arrest and hectic activities failed to impress the Saudi government. The US advised its Saudi counterpart not to deport Jundal to Pakistan until his identity was proved.120 Finally, India produced the DNA sample of Jundal’s family, which impressed the Saudi government. The Saudis wanted the longer route of extradition of Jundal to India but India wanted deportation.121 A Red Corner notice was issued in May 2012, which paved the deportation of Jundal to India and India got hold of him on 20 June 2012. Pakistan’s worst fear came true as Jundal revealed all the uncomfortable details about the LeT, the ISI and Mumbai terror attacks conspiracy. Jundal told his interrogators that the control room in Karachi was located in the Quaidabad area, exactly between the Malir Cantonment and Jinnah International Airport. He revealed that the control room was a small apartment with four TV sets, computers with Internet connections, and many mobile handsets. After the Mumbai attacks, an alerted ISI destroyed the control room. The ISI followed the same pattern in February 2012, when it destroyed Osama’s hideout in Abbottabad in the full glare of the media. Jundal told Delhi Police that he was the eighth person of the 10 member senior LeT-ISI members involved in the Mumbai attacks. Apart from Hafiz Saeed and Zakiur-Rehman Lakhvi, the 10-member team comprised of Muzammil, Rehan alias Junaid alias Khalid, Abu Kahafa, Abu Al Kama, Abu Zarar, Abu Jundal, and ISI officers Major Sameer Ali and Col. Hamza.122 He informed the interrogators that he had met Headley at Beitul-Mujahideen in PoK. Jundal revealed the names of the ISI officers

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who were in the control room then. Major Sajid Meer of the ISI was a new name revealed by Jundal, apart from the names of ISI officers already known to Indian agencies. The arrest of Jundal proved to be a prize catch for India to connect the missing dots in the Mumbai terror case. The security agencies obtained a plethora of information from his interrogations and seized gadgets, his email IDs and mobile phones. Jundal solved the mystery behind many past terror attacks in India and prepared the security agencies to face future challenges. The arrest of Jundal, however, opened the fault line in India’s enforcement system rather quickly. Statements such as Jundal’s arrest sparks a battle between investigating agencies hogged the national headlines. RAW, IB and other federal agencies, which were involved in the deportation of Jundal, handed over the prize catch to Delhi Police. Soon an ugly and visionless cat fight started amongst various state organs — primarily involving the Mumbai and Delhi Police. The absence of an arbiter was far more striking than the fighting itself. Delhi’s Tis Hazari court, where Jundal was tried, rejected the Mumbai Police’s numerous pleas to have a hand on Jundal. The NIA poked its nose and wanted custody of Jundal. Both the police forces became involved in off the record and anonymous verbal abuse of each other’s professional competency. The matter would have been settled easily and without a trace of infighting had the many agencies operated in unison. An impatient Mumbai Police made plea after plea to snatch Jundal from the Delhi Police. On the other hand, the Delhi Police took it as a matter of prestige and resisted each attempt of the Mumbai Police.123 Finally, good sense prevailed when an Esplanade court issued a warrant against Jundal and the Delhi judge respected the judicial decorum and agreed to send Jundal to the custody of the Mumbai Police.

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Amita Shah and Jharna Pathak

8 The Afghan Conflict, Pakistan Conundrum and India’s Future Security Œ

Analysis concerning the Mumbai attacks and Pakistan’s irreconcilable

presence in India’s West would be incomplete until the West’s war on terror in Afghanistan and its contributory trail, escalatory catalyst and sprinkling impact on India’s security situation is scrutinized. Although an official patron of terrorists and one of the cradles of terrorism, Pakistan is a frontline player in the West’s war on terror. It has been intrinsically involved in the affairs of Afghanistan since 9/11; it barely cared when the frontiers of the war on terror stretched beyond the Durand Line, and reacted mutely even when the war reached deep inside the country’s garrison town of Abbottabad. The country’s leverage on Afghanistan is unquestionable and because of its influence, its army and the ISI are playing with both sides of the war on terror with magical dexterity. Nevertheless, the sheer length of the war, which has dragged beyond 12 years at the time of writing, has been troubling Pakistan as it is taxing to manage a long double game. If the Pakistani army and the ISI continue to play a double game, the leverage will diminish more and more and finally it will have minimal or no power over Afghanistan.1 The double game does not translate into unconditional support either for the Afghan insurgents (Taliban) or for the US/NATO alliance. For both the participants, Pakistan has been maintaining checks and balances by way of supporting on some occasions while opposing on others. Readers would recall that the Taliban were never the fully baptized stooges of Pakistan, although they received every kind of support from the ISI. During the decade after 9/11, many members of the Taliban settled in Pakistan and started working as business persons in the field of transportation and other similar vocations. Other Taliban, after a decade living a refugee’s life in Pakistan, wanted to return to their homeland. Even the core of Taliban fighters, although encouraged by the draw down, wanted

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peace and hence were ready for a negotiated settlement. However, the ISI, which has long been profiling the Taliban, has not allowed them a broad-based settlement. The agency is dictating its terms and if the Taliban refuse to oblige, all their family members are thrown into jail. The ISI played spoiler to Richard Holbrooke’s initiative for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. The agency even scuttled a peace initiative of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose government was denied direct access to the Taliban. The ISI encouraged the Taliban, at times against their wishes, to attack US and NATO targets, so that the agency remained indispensible in the eyes of the US. Such bullying tactics frustrated the Taliban who were vying for freedom from the caging and suffocating control of the ISI. In an attempt to get rid of the ISI’s looming control, Tayyib Agha, the authorized Taliban leader started negotiations with the US at Dubai, Qatar and Chantilly, the German Village, where top-secret talks were held. Agha told his Western negotiators to keep the discussion secret, but it was leaked by the US officials opposed to the talk. After the leak, the ISI arrested a number of Taliban leaders, including Mullah Baradar, to sabotage the peace process. The ISI rounded up Tayyib Agha after his return to Peshawar to find out about the Taliban who were involved in the peace talks with the US and bypassing the ISI. The peace process stalled. Against this background, Pakistan’s powerful spy agency was unwilling to acknowledge the fact that the monster that was the Taliban in captivity was a disaster in waiting. This was simply because when the Taliban got a chance to assert themselves, considering their past rift, they would not give space to the the ISI in Afghanistan. As a result, Pakistan would lose leverage in Afghanistan. The US has tolerated Pakistan’s double game for a long time. But there was a marked change during the fag end of Bush’s time at the White House and since the time of Obama, the US has been belligerent towards Pakistan and reduced its reliance on the ISI. So much so that even for operations inside Pakistan, the CIA has not been informing its Pakistani counterpart. As per the 2004 US–Pakistan secret understanding, before each US drone strike in Pakistan, the CIA was required to send a fax message to the ISI and the ISI in return had to acknowledge it. The same deal ensured that US drones would not venture where Islamabad did not want the Americans going: Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, and the mountain camps where Kashmiri militants were trained for attacks in India.2 This pledge was set aside when the US Navy Seals killed bin Laden in Abbottabad. The

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Northern Transport System, crisscrossing through Central Asia, has significantly reduced the American reliance on Karachi port and the supply route to Afghanistan through Pakistan. The Chahbahar port in Iran, which is being developed by India, is another such option with which to overlook Karachi. When the US feels that Pakistan has crossed the threshold, it would not hesitate to dump the country. In such a scenario, Pakistan’s leverage on Afghanistan would be a thing of the past. Nevertheless, Pakistan’s common ethnic link, tribal connections, common Deobandi religious outlook with the Afghan Pashtuns and a 1,400-km border are all existing ironies, which would make peace difficult if Pakistan resiled. A settlement in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s participation and consent would be a fragile one and if ever the Taliban are peeled off from Pakistan, it would never hesitate to rely on lesser players like the Haqqani Network and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to create trouble. Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, himself is annoyed with Pakistan and views the country with suspicion. If his loyal followers remained in position after the 2014 drawdown, they would oppose Pakistan’s interference in the same way as Karzai has done. The Tajik dominated the Northern Alliance and the Shia Hazaras of Afghanistan are already against Pakistan’s interference in their country. Afghanistan’s Pashtun comprise 40 per cent of the country’s population and are mostly led by the Taliban. They are annoyed with Pakistan the same way Hamid Karzai and his Pashtun followers are unhappy with the ISI. Cumulatively, all these groups would add to the reduction of Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan. This already happened in 1989, when the USSR vacated Afghanistan and it was repeated again in 1992, when Pakistan failed to gain any leverage after the fall of the Najibullah regime in Afghanistan. The ISI lost control in 1989 and 1992, but not so much in 1996, when the Taliban captured Afghanistan. During the Taliban rule, Pakistan asserted great influence but the Taliban were not really under Pakistan. The ISI was betting for Hikmetyar when suddenly the Taliban sprang up to overpower all other Afghan factions to rule the country. Clannish relations, ethnic similarities, madrassa ties and the long stay of many of the Taliban fighters in Pakistan cemented the ISI–Taliban relations. With robust filial relations with the Taliban the Pakistan army extracted rich dividends from its Afghan policy as the Taliban agreed to host the Kashmir militants’ training centres in 1997 after the US pressurized Pakistan to divest such infrastructure inside

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the country. However, the extent of the benefit and the strategic depth accrued by Pakistan from the Taliban is a fiercely debated matter. Pakistani scholars are debating the issue at great length and intellectuals like Ayasha Siddiqua and Ayesha Jalal view the period as Pakistan’s lost moment. Ahmed Rashid dedicated a full chapter (Chapter 14 — ‘Master or Victim: Pakistan’s Afghan War’) in his famous book Taliban on this issue where he argued that Pakistan was actually at the receiving end during the Taliban period. My own assessment is a bit different from that of Pakistani scholars. I believe Pakistan’s official penetration during the Taliban era was less than that of the looming entrée of its extremists. In other words, it was the terrorist organizations and madrassas of Pakistan who had exploited the period to consolidate their base and strength. The ISI and army in reality had lesser leverage. What is significant here is as a cardinal policy, these organizations (the ISI and Pakistan Army) have historically been viewing their extremist population as its armed wing and have never hesitated to promote such ties. There was no inverse analysis by the ISI about the possible fallout of such dangerous dalliance amongst the terrorist outfits. As a result, soon the conflict engulfed Pakistan and the spill over proved disastrous. There is a horizontal willingness in Pakistan to remain involved in the affair of Afghanistan. However, the same is not true for Afghanistan. The exact degree of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan during the Taliban period is disputed. But the ISI and army thought that they had leverage during the Taliban period and they are actually harbouring the illusion that the same could be repeated in future. The illusion of 1996 is motivating Pakistan to put its nose in the affair of Afghanistan despite the collateral damage the country has been suffering since 9/11. Despite numerous warnings, Pakistan is living in denial and refusing to address the root of its policy discord, where contradictory policies are persuaded with the same strength and same breath. Pakistan holds only a negative veto that means it is capable of disturbing the peace in Afghanistan. It lacks the capacity to establish peace, install a government and even restrict its own militants from waging war in Afghanistan. If and when the international community, mainly the US, the Afghan parties including the Taliban and other neighbours of Afghanistan decide to withstand the negative role of Pakistan, situations like 1989 and 1992 would easily be replicated. To some extent, that would be a pyrrhic victory for the victors, as

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Pakistan would continue to pose a threat to the peace. But that would reduce the bargaining capacity of Pakistan and if it loses leverage, the cost this time would be higher than that of the past. The ISI is in turmoil. The agency has been accused of killing Syed Saleem Shahzad, who was about to reveal al Qaeda’s penetration of the Pakistani Navy. It is difficult to believe that bin Laden was living in Abbottabad without the knowledge of the ISI. On its militant policy, the ISI and army are divided. Pakistani agencies are handing al-Qaeda elements over to the US while at the same time protecting members of Haqqani and other malleable terrorist organizations inside the country. In the past Osama bin Laden had helped Nawaz Sharif to bribe lawmakers and initiate a confidence vote against Benazir Bhutto. Former ISI Chief Hamid Gul was a significant supporter of bin Laden who facilitated many acquaintances for bin Laden in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Earlier, Pakistan was not on the firing line of al-Qaeda and hence its military used to consider it as a favourable force. However, the U-turn of Pakistan after 9/11 and the handing over of numerous al-Qaeda militants to the US, many of whom are still in Guantanamo Bay, changed al-Qaeda, which sought to overthrow the Pakistan government. Thence onward, the Pakistan military and al-Qaeda were at loggerheads. Since Musharraf’s days, the military has realized the fact that al-Qaeda is igniting Pakistani militants against Pakistan. The military understand the fact that the Lal Masjid episode was an al-Qaeda sponsored confrontation. Army Chief General Pervez Kayani knew all this when he became the COAS in 2007. Kayani knew of an al-Qaeda plot to kill him at a local gym but he understood the significance of al-Qaeda, which was essential to unsettle the US in Afghanistan. The Pakistan army’s unuttered wish, which was cherished by al-Qaeda until 9/11, was that ‘al-Qaeda should disturb everybody except Pakistan’. After 9/11, the dynamic of militancy in Pakistan changed and al-Qaeda along with its affiliates started targeting Pakistani interests. Many Pakistani military personnel thought al-Qaeda was correct in its attack against Pakistan, which was betraying its own people by way of siding with the US. Nearly 1,700 army personnel deserted the Pakistan army and a select few of them even landed in al-Qaeda’s camp as instructors and strategists. The overwhelming danger al-Qaeda posed to Pakistan was no secret to its military but the army understand the utility of al-Qaeda well to keep the pot boiling in Afghanistan, which ensured cash inflow into Pakistan. To remain in the good books of the US the Pakistani army opposed,

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captured and handed over al-Qaeda militants to the US. But at the same time, to demonstrate its strategic depth policy and create trouble in Afghanistan, the military has been supporting the Haqqani network, which in turn is housing and protecting al-Qaeda elements. This arrangement, although detrimental for Pakistan, suits the interest of the military to oppose and support al-Qaeda at its own volition. In the aftermath of bin Laden’s killing, Kayani was neither surprised nor reactive in his response. In fact, he had to face the ire of junior lieutenants, who asked him, ‘why the US attacked bin Laden without informing Pakistan army’? Such questions are not mere complaints against the US for not trusting Pakistan but are related to the fact that the Pakistan army failed to alert bin Laden before the attack. The ISI eliminated Saleem Shahzad before his expose of the alQaeda–Pakistan Navy’s complicity. Stratfor communications, which were published by Wikileaks on the issue of the ISI’s knowledge about bin Laden’s presence, is categorical about the ISI’s connivance with bin Laden. On the issue of who were those personnel who had knowledge about bin Laden’s presence, the Wikileaks revelation said ‘Mid to senior level ISI and Pak Military with one retired Pak Military General that had knowledge of the bin Laden arrangements and safe house’. The revelation enriched us with the fact that US intelligence knew the names and ranks of the personnel. After the discovery of bin Laden in Pakistan, US hawks advocated ‘containing Pakistan and conduct a policy of focused hostility’.3 But such policy was never practised because it is impossible for the US to contain Pakistan. Pakistani interest in Afghan political affairs is not limited to its army and the ISI, but the whole society wants to keep Afghanistan with them so that it does not fall under the influence of India and the US. In Afghanistan, the tribal people living adjacent to the Pakistani border are less concerned with the government at Kabul. Afghanistan has never had a centralized government. The inhabitants of particular regions are more concerned with the local warlords, who are the administrative heads of the respective regions. The porous border brings people from one place to another but does not bring their wishes and will. Once they cross the border by way of bribe, right, infiltration or with a valid visa, they understand the fact that they have to leave their traditions and rules behind. The change of currency, customs and local rulers has its own impact on the psyche of ordinary Afghans

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or Pakistanis. Apart from this, the people of the lawless FATA do not understand what strategic depth is. Their focus is their own survival, their comfort and their customs. Normally, the central Government of Afghanistan or the local warlords offer a monthly stipend to the tribal elders of FATA to pacify them. Since the time of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, Afghan and FATA tribes had been receiving the stipend known as rahdari (route tax) to remain loyal to the government at Kabul and Delhi. The practice continued during the British era and stopped after Dr. Najibullah’s regime fell in 1992, when a ‘comparatively Pakistanfriendly’ government of the mujahideen was installed in Kabul. Karzai restarted the stipend in 2006. The move was intended to pacify the tribes against Afghanistan as Pakistan views Afghanistan as its strategic backyard. The Afghans do not like this overreach and even the Taliban when settled in 1996 started asserting themselves, never recognized the Durand Line, and never ceased their demand for a portion of Pakistan. During the Afghan war of 1979–89, the ISI trained 83,000 mujahideen in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But after the war, there was no trace of Pakistani societal influence in Afghanistan. Therefore, Pakistani society can merely wish for a friendly government at Kabul but cannot force one. It is the ISI and the army which possess the capacity and inclination to influence the affair of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s convincing yearning to establish its sway in Afghanistan is real as the country believes that from such a position it would be easier to micromanage the affairs of South Asia. No effective diplomatic tool is available against Pakistan and even containment by the US would be ineffective. However, if the Afghans work in tandem with the US, and if the US withdraws all support to Pakistan, there will be a dent in Pakistan’s influence on Afghanistan. The notion that Pakistan is indispensable for Afghan peace is not based on careful scrutiny. Pakistan holds a negative veto and if the stakeholders decide to face this negative impact, over a period its impact can be neutralized. Such a protracted policy will not only benefit the region but benefit Pakistan as well in the long run. However, Pakistan’s crumbling economy, the scary thought of the nuke key falling into the hands of militants and the plight of 180 million people has been proving to be a deterrent against strong international diplomatic measures or reactionary initiative. Intriguingly, Pakistan’s failed state status and its housing of myriad groups of militants has been saving the country from international punitive proceedings. The agonizing and bizarre

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truth of our time is that we have to live with the awful Pakistani double game in Afghanistan and its consequential spillover across the world. The core question is whether India will be affected by the consequential spillover impact of the double game. Pakistan’s domineering presence in Afghanistan has a direct bearing on India’s internal as well as external security. On 10 May 2011, exactly a week after the US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the US Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen received an unsigned, undated secret memo from Hussain Haqqani, then Pakistani Ambassador to the US. Haqqani sent the memo through Mansoor Ijaz, an American businessman of Pakistani descent after the alleged approval of President Zardari. The document, which sought Adm. Mullen’s intervention in the affair of Pakistan, reveals interesting facts about the Mumbai terror attacks as well. The memo indicated that the Zardari government suspected active involvement of the shadowy S-Wing of the ISI in the Mumbai attacks and expressed helplessness in bringing the perpetrators to justice.4 Earlier, as discussed in the preceding chapters, the Pakistan government had admitted the role of the LeT and Pakistani citizens in the Mumbai attacks. The secret memo is the first ever official admission by Pakistan about the involvement of the ISI in the Mumbai conspiracy. The S-Wing of the ISI, which is said to be dedicated to promoting the dubious agenda of a narrow group of nationalists, believes that the agency can only protect Pakistan’s territorial integrity. Therefore, the agency became the ‘scourge of radicalism that has become a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy’.5 Domination of Afghanistan and their double game in the Afghan theatre are part of Pakistan’s broader design to control South Asia. The rugged rocky slopes, the numerous giant mountain caves and the legendary passes in the Afghan provinces of Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Nangarhar and Kunar have long been Pakistan’s virtual militant training grounds. Careful vetting of the profile of arrested Kashmiri militants reiterates the fact that hardcore militants and their leaders undergo regular training in these provinces. Therefore, control over the region is vital which provides wider psychological reassurance to Pakistan. India is not blind to Pakistan’s regional ambition. During the Taliban regime, when India’s contact with Kabul ceased, Pakistani extremists and the ISI used Afghanistan as a sanctuary for anti-Indian terrorists. India’s endeavour includes checkmating Pakistan’s intent to use Afghanistan for anti-India activities. India has invested or pledged US$2 billion in Afghanistan during the past 12 years for the purpose

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of reconstruction. Since 2007, India has been training Afghan infantry and the size and quality of training has increased since the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement on 4 October 2012. Every year over 200 Afghan military officers, 600 infantry and 100 commandos will be trained at various Indian military academies. Apart from cooperating with Kabul, New Delhi has also expedited the US$100 million Chabahar port in Southeastern Iran. To stay apace with the changing times, New Delhi has sharply re-oriented its Afghan strategy, reached out to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of Hizb-e-Islami party and is keeping its door open to the Taliban.6 The Taliban have also returned the courtesy in kind and called India as a ‘significant country’ in the region.7 While Afghans are okay with India’s involvement in the reconstruction of the country, such intimate contacts have set off alarm bells in Pakistan, which feels encircled by two hostile neighbours. The Indian consulates in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Herat are viewed as outposts to create an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan.8 Pakistan accused India of abetting Baloach rebels and never missed an opportunity to isolate India from the affairs of Afghanistan. Pakistani proxies invariably attack India’s interests in Afghanistan and the volley of fighting in between the two traditional rivals was so deep that ‘Kabul is considered as the new Kashmir’.9 India’s link would be disturbed if civil war occurs in the country, in which case Pakistan would not hesitate to use Afghanistan in upping its ante against its eastern rival. India cannot afford complacency on the matter of national security. Not only Pakistan and Afghanistan, but India’s relationship with its so-called friendly neighbours10 is also at a toss. ‘Relations with China have been in a drift; Nepal is reclaiming Indian territories; Bhutan’s complaint about ULFA extremists is getting out of hand; Bangladesh is reticent on vital security issues while Sri Lanka’s ethnic tension has been enmeshing India’.11 Encircled by such volatile relations with its neighbours, restriction of terrorist entry into India has becoming a challenge. Use of diplomatic jargon like the terrorism inflicted by ‘non state actors’ has been acting as a deterrent to deal with the source of terrorism — ‘the recruitment centres, training camps and safe havens and sanctuaries’.12 Pakistani storm troopers, armed with phenomenal state support, harbour the dream of wresting Kashmir from India and subduing India before Pakistan. State support to non-state actors has became so powerful that the 21st century is witnessing infringement of

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national frontiers more by fringe forces than any organized sovereign army. Fringe forces, with or without state support, conducted all the attacks on various cities starting from New York to New Delhi, Washington to London, Madrid to Mumbai and Bali to Beslan. No nation is immune from the menace of terrorism inflicted by state supported non-state actors. India shares 15,106 km of land frontier with seven neighbouring countries and possesses a huge coastline of 7,516 km including island territories with 1,197 islands. The country is teeming with multiple entry/exit points with 36 international airports, 94 seaports, 136 land customs stations (LCSs), and 92 inland container depots.13 Securing the 22,623 km frontier is a security nightmare. However, India’s rank in geographical size is only after Russia, Canada, China, the US, Brazil and Australia in that order. Unlike India, all these bigger countries have been defending their territories with various degrees of problems and difficulties but all practicing a robust frontier policy. Since time immemorial, securing their frontiers against hostile forces, while facilitating legitimate transportation, trade and commerce, has been a non-negotiable subject for all countries across the world. This task is the solemn responsibility of India’s security forces, which dutifully follows the sovereign head of the country. That is the reason the responsibility of keeping the nation safe from external as well as internal danger lies with the sovereign head of the country. India’s forces have always remained dutifully obedient to the country’s democratic leadership and there has never been a revolt at any rank. Immediately after independence, there was a rumour that India’s then powerful Army Chief General Kodandera Madappa Cariappa could orchestrate a coup as he was becoming popular amongst the masses for his role in the post-partition settlement.14 In 1953, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made General Cariappa India’s third High Commissioner to Australia. He was 53 then and had recently stepped down from his demanding role as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Army of independent India. He did not particularly want to go to Australia, but Prime Minister Nehru had insisted and that, of course, settled the matter.15 Gen. Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw was the first of only two Indian military officers to hold the highest rank of Field Marshal in the Indian Army (the other being Field Marshal K. M. Cariappa). Just before the Bangladesh operations in December 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked

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Manekshaw, who was the Army Chief then, ‘General, are you ready (for the war)’. The illustrious general never displayed any reservation or disobedience and pat came the reply from the elegant officer, ‘I am always ready, sweetie’. On another occasion, Mrs Gandhi asked him whether he was planning to take over the country. The general pointed his finger to his long nose and replied ‘I don’t use it to poke into other’s affairs’.16 A weak or indecisive head of state could jeopardize the country’s national security. Lack of coordination amongst various state organs and inability in handling of those organs effectively by the elected leaders of the day would lead to weakening of national security. During the 10 years from 1989 to 1999, when insurgency afflicted Jammu and Kashmir, as many as eight prime ministers ruled India.17 Instability of the federal government and frequent change of security strategy had an adverse effect on national security. In 2004, the Department of Border Management was created in the Ministry of Home Affairs to pay focused attention to the issues related to management of international land and coastal borders. Since then the department has exclusively dealt with expeditious construction of roads, fencing and floodlighting along the Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangla borders, development of Integrated Check Posts at various locations on the international borders of the country and construction of strategic roads along the India–China border. What is more important and necessary is effective and consistent management of the motto that securing India’s frontier is vital for the life and death of her inhabitants. The Mumbai attacks and their judicial trial have not only exposed the fragility of India’s frontiers but the fragile nature of the country’s response mechanism. The attack threw new challenges to the functioning of the various state apparatuses — both at the level of federal government and provincial government. Considering the near total systemic failure during the attacks and its aftermath, an outraged India demanded answers to the question of why there was a systemic failure. Wounded and killed, not by the buccaneers beyond the borders, but by the incompetence of their own security personnel and political leadership, Indians were left with very few options but to live within the same system. As a cosmetic step and to assuage the public anger, the provincial chief minister and federal home minister were divested of their jobs. The government promptly introduced the constitution of an investigation agency at the national level with the explicit purpose of investigating and prosecuting offences affecting the sovereignty,

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security and integrity of India. Four regional hubs of the NSG were created in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata. Fallaciously, Indians were led to believe that the post-attacks transformation would be real. However, the post-attack revolution never materialized and what turned out was a caricature form of India’s national reckoning. Within a year of the Mumbai attacks, public anger that many thought would usher in a political groundswell for a firmer government response dissipated. The functioning of the Ram Pradhan Commission set up after the attacks to look into the reasons was shrouded in mystery and its report was never made public. Before the first anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, almost all the political officials who had resigned as a result of the attacks were either back in their old jobs or promoted to other plum posts.18 Vilasrao Deshmukh was promoted to Union Cabinet Minister; Shivraj Patil was made Provincial Governor; Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor was promoted and transferred to the post of Director General of Maharashtra State Police Housing and Welfare Corporation; and Rakesh Maria, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) was allowed to lead the investigations in the Mumbai attacks case and was later promoted as the Chief of the Anti Terrorist Squad and finally became the Mumbai Police Commissioner. The message was clear: that the system would never change. Sadly, public discourse also missed the crux of the attacks. The special public prosecutor, highly praised by the media, was not well trained to tackle terrorist issues. The absence of coordination amongst various state agencies, especially between the federal home ministry and the provincial home ministry, was palpable. The federal home ministry was far more resourceful and informed about the Mumbai attacks case but did not share everything with the provincial police. This led to a half-hearted legal fight by the provincial police at the court of law. The acquittal of two terrorists by all the three courts was because of lack of professionalism and absence of a thorough systematic investigation on the part of the enforcement agencies. For such terrible terror attacks, which the court termed as ‘war on the country’, the Indian public were not given well-knit material in the form of a white paper on how the Pakistani forces planned and executed the attacks. Public knowledge about the attacks was mostly from the media reports and leakages of government reports. The ruling coalition at the federal level, as well as at the provincial level, lost an opportunity to apprise their people and maintain transparency on the attacks.

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There should have been a federal commission on the lines of the 9/11 commission to study and give recommendations on the structural changes needed in intelligence and coordination between the union and province. There is a dire need to suggest changes in the existing system to pre-empt or neutralize such attacks in future. Instead of doing all these corrective measures, what happened was the home minister rushing here and there, including to the US, and the government coming out with some action plan, which did not impress much for its efficacy or cogency. Another lost opportunity. The attacks exposed the helplessness of the security forces, especially the Mumbai Police. A civil force like the Mumbai Police would not have been able to face a professional and well-trained group of heavily armed commando terrorists unless they had an equally professional and well-trained set of commandos who should have superior weaponry.19 The police force of Mumbai, even five years after the devastating attacks, function under the assumption that all criminals fear the police uniform and their mere presence is more powerful than the weapons of their adversaries. For example, when the firing at the Taj Hotel took place, for a considerable period, the police thought that it was a gang war and that the local police were sufficient to deal with it. Ratan Tata, the owner of the Taj Hotel, lamented the lacklustre response and underestimation of the gravity of the situation by the local police. Soon after the attacks he said, ‘In the Taj Hotel the first contingent of policemen came with three policemen. They were ill equipped to handle them, in fact, one of them got killed, the other got shot badly and one remains’.20 Apart from unpreparedness, the Mumbai Police believe that all criminals in Mumbai are civilian irregulars from India or from abroad and they lack the training to fight a longer organized battle. This belief was reiterated by the fact that when the Mumbai attacks started there was total confusion and a collapse of the response mechanism. The Fire Department didn’t know what to do. Local police were not equipped to engage and there was an absence of urgent reinforcements. Help from the marines was delayed in a bureaucratic tangle while the commandos arrived too late. There was a clear deficiency of a single leader. While rushing to the attack site senior IPS officer Ashok Kamte rang up his wife and jovially asked her to switch on the television. Kamte, with all his years of service experience, believed that some gang war had started and with the arrival of police, the fighting would soon be over.21 Such amateurish thinking proved fatal and within minutes of

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the attacks, the Mumbai Police lost three of its most valuable senior officers. Contrary to the understanding and imagination of the Mumbai Police, the attackers displayed a sophisticated level of training, coordination, and stamina and unlike the under-trained police, the attackers fired in controlled, disciplined bursts.22 A closer examination of the assault tells us that the attackers were far superior and advanced in training and technique compared to the police force. Firing at the railway stations and hotels indicates the precision fire of the attackers. Ballistic experts observed from bullet holes that shots were fired in groups of three aimed at head level. Less experienced shooters may have fired on the ceiling and floor but not the Mumbai terrorists. This is a testimony of the fact that the group of terrorists had extensive practice. The number of casualties shows that 10 terrorists managed to kill or injure over 500 people. The discipline of the terrorists was not only limited to killing people and dying in action but conducting their operation successfully under hostile circumstances. For example, ‘they used hand signals to communicate across loud and crowded spaces’. The prosecution missed this point while preparing the case against the attackers because of the disconnection among state agencies. The hand signalling applied by the terrorists is a typical ISI spy craft. It is widely practised and prevalent in the functioning of the ISI, although intelligence agencies and security forces across the world including the NSG of India apply the method. The ISI personnel use some kind of hand signal to open the gate for their entry into their office building in Rawalpindi and other cities in Pakistan. Since all ISI officers travel in civilian clothes in unmarked vehicles, which cannot be identified as belonging to the army or the ISI, there is a special hand signalling system for brigadiers and above, by which the security staff at the outer gate can recognize their rank and let them drive into the ISI headquarters without undergoing frisking.23 This hand signalling changes frequently to avoid imitation by trespassers. The investigating agencies failed to realize this peculiarity, as they were unable to connect the Mumbai attacks with the ISI. By hiring a remote, self styled and regional public prosecutor, the state had pushed the vital matter towards an ensured self-effacing outcome. The public prosecutor was also handicapped from the beginning because of the limited access he had into classified information acquired by the federal home ministry. The union government and the provincial government had taken different routes to apprehend and punish the culprits. This fact was more vivid on 25 February 2010,

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when India and Pakistan restarted their stalled dialogue on a range of issues in New Delhi. India not only accused the involvement of ISI officers in the Mumbai crime but also asked Pakistan to hand over two serving ISI officers.24 Strangely, this newfound evidence remained out of the ambit of the special public prosecutor, who was presenting India’s case before the special session court in Mumbai. Neither the Maharashtra government nor the special session court had noticed the new development and the inter-organizational non-cooperation continued. The final verdict of the special session court came on 3 May 2010, a good two months after the claim of the union government that two serving ISI officers were involved in the Mumbai attacks. Sometime later, the Maharashtra government fought the case Md. Ajmal Md. Amir Kasab v. State of Maharashtra at the Supreme Court of India without the participation or cooperation of the federal government. Similarly, the federal government investigated the broader conspiracy of the Mumbai attacks and separately filed a case NIA v. David Coleman Headley at the Patiala House Court in New Delhi without the presence or participation of the Maharashtra Government.25 Having the advantage of deciding the timing, place, element of surprise and choice of instruments for a terror act, terrorists always walk one step ahead of the security forces. With superior intelligence, excellent inter-departmental coordination and constant vigilance, terror attacks could be minimized if not eliminated. In 2002, the US created a unified Department of Homeland Security to protect America. Subsequently, most nations including UK, France, Germany, and Australia revamped their security laws. Because of the new awareness and alertness of its security forces, the US has prevented 25 terror attacks since the September 11 terrorist strike.26 Contrary to the experience of the West, India’s record in dealing with terrorist attacks is dismal. The attacks on Pune, Bangalore, Varanasi, Mumbai, and Delhi from 2010 to 2012 were testimony to the fact that the security apparatus of India is still vulnerable and the country’s systemic failure is taking on epidemic proportions. Delhi had a close shave on May 2011 when a car bomb planted outside the Delhi High Court mercifully caused no loss of life, apparently because the electronic circuits in the explosive device malfunctioned in the extreme heat. No lessons were learned and within four months, on 7 September 2011, the terrorists returned with better preparation, with the aided support of pleasant weather. They bombed nearly the same place with impeccable immunity. The failure of India to prevent such attacks is

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all the more unsettling as conditions in Pakistan deteriorate by the day, making the risks of another Mumbai-style attack impossible to ignore. Pakistan’s transparent support to al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani network and plethora of homegrown terrorist groups including the LeT make India susceptible to terrorist attacks. India has done little of the painful public soul-searching that followed the September 11 attacks on the US. The federal home ministry has too many security agencies to deal with making it a highly unwieldy and ineffective body against terror strikes. The immediate need for India is an urgent upgrade-modernization of the civil police, training, motivation, weapons for the beat constables, strong terror laws with no clemency for terrorists, an integrated security department, fast track special courts for terrorist crimes, and special mega city policing. The US war on terror made no progress in Afghanistan, which has been precipitating their draw down. The West’s failure has a wider ramification for India. Although the militants are still to be declared victorious, the failure of the West has emboldened the Afghan militants and encouraged their Pakistani counterparts to warn India that it will be their next target. Pakistan presently waging war against its homegrown terrorists in FATA and the menace of extremism is no secret to its army and the ISI. But despite that Pakistan is still to change its militant policy and abetment of terrorism against India. The militants, who are inventing new routes including paragliding, are eager to come to India to replicate Mumbai-like attacks. The situation in the western border of Pakistan has been keeping the country’s security forces and militants busy. Once the draw down is completed and once Afghanistan returns to the Taliban or civil war, Pakistani security agencies and militants will be relieved from the affairs of Afghanistan to focus on India. At the end of December 2012, Hakimullah Mehsud made a statement where he said that his group was willing to negotiate if ‘Pakistan stop its involvement in the war pitting Afghan insurgents against the Kabul government and refocus on a war of revenge against India’.27 The TTP’s offer was actively considered by the Corps Commanders of Pakistan who met under the chairmanship of the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Kayani, at Rawalpindi on 3 January 2013. Three days later, on 6 January 2013, Pakistani and Indian troops exchanged gunfire. On 8 January 2013, a Pakistan army ‘Border Action Team’

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crossed the LoC between the Chhatri and Atma outposts in Jammu and Kashmir and ambushed an Indian army petrol team killing two soldiers of the 13 Rajputana Rifles. Reiterating the connection between the militancy in Pakistan and the Pakistan army’s reaction, India’s Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that LeT chief Hafiz Saeed visited Pakistan Occupied Kashmir on 6 or 7 January 2013, a day before the killing of Indian soldiers. More damning and glaring details about the Pakistani army’s attacks on Indian troops emerged when a classified Indian Army’s Military Intelligence (MI) report surfaced in an Indian newspaper. According to the report, there was a meeting between senior ISI officers, important terrorist commanders and guides a few days before the attack at Rawalkote in PoK. The border conflagration was an indication of the Pakistani army’s willingness to accept the TTP’s pre-condition for talks. The militancy situation in Pakistan is signalling future peril against the existing calm in India. The US, a partner of Pakistan in the war on terror, could do little but to perform a balancing act in its diplomacy in the region. A country of India’s size could hardly depend or rely on the security assurance of a foreign government. Political consensus, national resolve, technical advancement, superior weapons, training and enthusiastic zeal to implement a terror policy are not options but compulsions for India. It is impossible to predict the fate of India–Pakistan relations and still difficult to map the behaviour of army and terrorist organizations. When Nawaz Sharif was elected to the post of prime minister in May 2013, he made the right noises for good bilateral ties with India. Then the military intervened, advising Nawaz to go slow. For the Pakistan military, India is still the uniting factor. For India, an unguarded soft approach on national security would invite catastrophe.

Introduction Ø

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Afterword to this Edition Œ

Much water has flown under the Mithi River since the 2008 shocking

Mumbai terror strikes that shook India’s collective conscience and promised a groundswell of change in the country’s response to terrorist attack. Nine years after the spectacular 60-hour Mumbai seize, fundamental security parameters remain the same. The day-to-day security of the country, like before the 26/11 attacks, is an exclusive constitutionally enabled state subject even today. Worse, since every single soul of India convincingly distrusts the state police on security issues, this constitutional arrangement is constantly in tatters. In its report, the Mumbai terror inquiry committee, also known as the Ram Pradhan Committee, correctly stated that the ‘state civil police is neither trained nor capable to protect the citizens from attacks of hardcore terrorists with sophisticated weapons’.1 That is why in all places starting from Srinagar to Chennai, after every terror hit, the state government summons central security forces ‘to not only counter terrorists but also to investigate the terror strike’.2 Unwittingly, this practice has been rendering the state police apparatus useless, making the citizens’ first-line defence defunct. The Mumbai attack was a painful example of a defunct state police apparatus that was unable to face a group of hardened foreign terrorists. Various investigative agencies of India concluded that the conspiracy to attack Mumbai in 2008 was hatched in Pakistan, and the suicide squad of dreaded Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) participated in the attacks. The Pakistani government candidly admitted the attack originated from Pakistani soil. On 12 May 2018, in an unusual display of unambiguous Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks, former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lamented that “Militant organisations are active. Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai?”3 In March 2017, the former Pakistani National Security Advisor (NSA) Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani frankly admitted in New Delhi that the ‘26/11 Mumbai attack carried out by a terror group based in Pakistan is classic trans-border terrorist event’.4 Gen. Durrani was Pakistan’s NSA when the LeT terrorists launched coordinated attacks across Mumbai on 26 November 2008.

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Despite the overwhelming evidence, India’s justice system could only punish the lone captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab. All other masterminds pronounced guilty by various courts, nine in number (David Coleman Headley, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Sajid Majid, Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, Major Iqbal, Major Sameer Ali and Ilyas Kashmiri), are either enjoying the Pakistan government’s direct protection, dead or spending jail terms in the United States. Strangely, the Maharashtra Government, under whose administration the Mumbai attacks took place, filed a superficial case on the terror attacks and ensured the hanging of captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab. Cases against the rest of the 44 accused from Pakistan and 3 from India were never pursued. As per the Maharashtra Government, the 44 Pakistani accused are safe because as a provincial government it cannot chase the foreign accused. Of the three Indian accused, Mohammad Faheem Ansari, a resident of Mumbai, and Sabauddin Ahmed, a resident of Bihar, were freed by the local court but are still languishing in Maharashtrian jails under various sections, while Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, a resident of Maharashtra, is awaiting his final verdict.5 Since a provincial government cannot hunt foreign accused, a year after the Mumbai attacks, especially after locating David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana in the United States in October 2009, the chase job was automatically transferred to the federal government. The National Investigation Agency (NIA), an organization created after the Mumbai terror attacks, registered a case at a specially designated NIA Court in New Delhi on 11 November 2009 to prove the larger angle of the Mumbai conspiracy and to nail the accused from foreign soil.6 Eight years later, the NIA ended with a chargesheet filed at the court and was only able to convince the court to issue non-bailable warrants against the nine accused – seven Pakistani, one American and one Canadian. Other than the LeT, the NIA concluded that the Pakistani terror group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) also abetted part of the Mumbai conspiracy. The casualness of the NIA’s chargesheet filed on 24 December 2011 can be ascertained from the fact that among the Pakistani accused, Ilyas Kashmiri, the leader of HuJI, was described as a living accused, number four, but in reality he had died on 3 June 2011. When 20 Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the United States on 11 September 2001, the United States started a war against Afghanistan

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and ensured that all accused remotely associated with 9/11 must go to solitary confinement and interrogation at Guantanamo Bay. However, when 10 terrorists attacked India on 26 November 2008, there was only uproar at all levels, but the country never initiated action against the accused proved guilty by its own court. The security agencies requested Interpol to issue a Red Corner Notice against the accused who are roaming freely in Pakistan or spending jail terms in the United States. The bitter irony is that all the 26/11 accused were tried the same way a ‘small thief’ is tried in India. The Indian punitive-justice system is no deterrent to terrorists.7 Sections 120B, 302, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) were applied against the accused terrorists along with sections 16, 18 and 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Some of these sections are applied when minor cheating, forgery and murder are committed by small-time Indian thieves. To make a difference in its fight against terrorists, it is essential that India reviews the role and efficacy of its provincial police and justice delivery system. Post-9/11, several measures were undertaken by the United States. After 26/11, India has claimed to be adopting similar measures. However, the findings on the ground contrast with the government’s claim. India never tried to understand the 26/11 attacks let alone adopted steps on a US scale. Indian politicians, police, prosecution, judiciary and bureaucracy maintained their inertia even after 26/11, while the United States heralded a new era after 9/11. It would be very difficult even for India’s most optimistic law enforcement officers to discuss steps taken after 26/11 that have improved India’s security and to say if India ever had succeeded in halting terrorist strikes. India and the United States stand on different pedestals, and their reactions to terrorist attacks are not comparable. In both countries, the results are also different. While the United States successfully stopped the recurrence of terrorist attacks on its soil since 9/11, as per the data provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs, an astonishing number of persons totalling 9402 have lost their lives owing to terror hits at different places in India since 26/11.8 The number also includes terrorists who were killed during action. Of the total deaths, 1883 persons have been killed only in Jammu and Kashmir. However, 2547 have been killed in the North-East. More than 4873 persons have been killed in Maoist and left-wing terrorist attacks during the same period. Finally, 99 persons were killed in other parts of India categorized as the hinterland of India by the home ministry.

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In March 2017, the Bhopal–Ujjain train was bombed in Madhya Pradesh. Between November 2008 and March 2017, cities such as Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Burdwan, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Patna, Bodh Gaya, New Delhi, Varanasi and Mumbai were targeted by terrorists to create mayhem.9 These attacks are outside the patented terror hit areas such as Jammu and Kashmir, north eastern states and left-wing extremism affected areas. The pan-Indian character of the terror hit is an indication that little has changed to stop the assassins since the devastating Mumbai terror attacks. Since there has been no reduction in terrorist strikes, the Ministry of Home Affairs smartly decided to divide the country’s internal security into four categories: (i) terrorism in the hinterland of the country, (ii) cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, (iii) insurgency in the north eastern states and (iv) left-wing extremism in certain areas. Categorization has been explicitly done since 2014 to reduce the burden of high numbers of casualties under one single heading. In other words, the government’s bureaucracy is presenting facts in a different mode while there is no change on the ground.

Prime Minister Modi and 26/11 In May 2014, Narendra Damodardas Modi won a massive electoral victory in general elections to replace the United Progressive Alliance Government. Change of government in New Delhi with a clear and strong mandate infused new confidence among citizens. There was hope that the culprits of the Mumbai attacks would be tried and punished. When the terror attack continued on 28 November 2008, Narendra Modi as the chief minister of Gujarat showed the guts to travel to the attack site in Mumbai purportedly to raise the morale of the security forces. From the attack site at the Oberoi-Trident hotel, he accused Pakistan of allowing the ‘use of sea routes to further terrorism against India’. He said it was a violation of the United Nations convention on the use of sea and land routes.10 Modi also visited the families of slain Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad chief Hemant Karkare and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar who were killed while fighting militants. Modi also announced that his government would give one crore rupees to Maharashtra for the families of policemen killed in the attacks, though the Maharashtra Government and Karkare’s widow declined Modi’s offer.11

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By visiting the attack site, Modi proved that he stood apart from all other political leaders, as far as showing solidarity with the forces was concerned. Other than rabble-rousing, no political party has shown genuine interest or constructively participated in the Mumbai attacks’ case. Public opinion was abhorrently against politicians because of their seemingly insensitive and self-centric personal security apparatuses, such as the gun-toting black cat commandos, surrounding paramilitary security guards and state police paraphernalia, which they preserved for themselves. To avoid public admonition, all parties foolishly steered clear of the Mumbai imbroglio. Before travelling to Mumbai, on 27 November 2008, at his residence, Modi convened a high-level meeting on the terror attack in Mumbai and decisions were taken to act fast on plugging the existing gaps in security along the 1,600-km-long Gujarat coastline. In the meeting, it was decided to act swiftly to implement a three-layer ring to make the coast secure. Then the Minister of State for Home Amit Shah followed it up with a similar meeting and even wrote to the then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to provide the necessary support to implement the three-layer security apparatus in Gujarat.12 A few years later, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah headed the Government of India and Bharatiya Janata Party respectively, enabling them to implement the promises they made to their citizens in November 2008. Four years have passed since Modi came to power but the implementation of those promises still remains only in papers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited Pakistani Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif along with other South Asian leaders to participate in his oath taking ceremony. Nawaz Sharif accepted the invitation and came to New Delhi. On 27 May 2014, both the leaders met at Hyderabad House in New Delhi. The Pakistani leader said they should put the ‘legacy of mistrust’ behind them and work for peace and stability. Modi said ‘if bomb blasts continue, then the talks will be lost in the din’.13 Modi conveyed that Pakistan must abide by its commitment to prevent its territory and territory under its control from being used for terrorism against India.14 Narendra Modi appointed former ace spy and retired intelligence bureau chief Ajit Kumar Doval as his national security advisor. Both Modi and Doval made a formidable combination of strong political and bureaucratic determination to overcome the bottlenecks. Considering their public posture and global image, it was expected that they may press the American and Pakistani leadership to act

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against the Mumbai conspirators. Frenzied public expectation about the new government’s resolution and commitment to bring the Mumbai culprits to book started dissipating. Soon it was proved that it is easier blaming the incumbent government for inaction than taking strong action against the terrorists and their perpetrators. By October 2014, India–Pakistan relations took a nosedive and border firing precipitated rivalry between the two governments. Sharif’s goodwill visit reduced to ashes as his generals upped the ante at the border. India responded to the border skirmishes in kind, and the cycle of terror attacks and India–Pakistan rivalry continued as usual. India invokes the Mumbai attack as a footnote at every India–Pakistan meet, with the explicit intention to put Pakistan on the back foot. Pakistan is not the only country that is giving shelter and protection to 26/11 conspirators. Even the United States is equally responsible for shielding Headley, the single biggest participant in the Mumbai conspiracy. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, is also safe in a US jail. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Barack Hussein Obama on numerous occasions, but he did not press the US President to hand over the terrorists wanted in India. On 20 January 2017, President Obama retired to his private life after the oath taking of President Donald John Trump. Global media reported unfavourably about Trump’s toxic campaign and his antiIslamic tirade. Trump’s unexpected rise and victory stunned the world, but it has sent a signal that the US public has mandated the new president to deal with Islamic terror remorselessly. On 26 June 2017, Prime Minister Modi arrived at the White House in Washington DC to grace the dinner invitation of President Trump. The two leaders displayed great admiration for each other and showed synchronism on almost all issues including terrorism. The meeting of the two leaders was held in the context of the US Supreme Court’s decision which cleared the way to prohibit the entry of people from six Muslim countries (Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya), who are considered by the Trump administration as dangerous.15 During their meeting, Trump declared that ‘we will destroy radical Islamic terrorism’, while Modi announced ‘doing away with terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens’.16 Despite the charged environment and a favourable background, the Indian team never raked up the issue of the extradition of the two Mumbai attack conspirators. The joint statement of Modi and Trump blithely

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asked ‘Pakistan to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai, Pathankot and other cross border terrorist attacks perpetrated by Pakistan-based groups’.17 Consoling India’s concern on terrorism, hours before Modi’s arrival in the United States, the State Department designated Syed Mohammed Yusuf Shah, also known as Syed Salahudeen, as a specially designated global terrorist.18 Syed Salahudeen is the Pakistan-based leader of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the only group that claims to be comprised of indigenous Kashmiri waging a freedom struggle only in the Kashmir valley not in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The new sanction rendered Syed Salahudeen and his Hizb-ul-Mujahideen’s struggle as illegal and denied the group global and local legitimacy. Dealing with the United States is simple as India has an extradition treaty, and if India cannot persuade the United States to hand over a couple of conspirators, expecting rival Pakistan to hand over seven alleged culprits of the Mumbai attacks is a cruel joke. The Modi government’s terror policy, like all the previous governments, is unclear. Countries like the United States and Israel have been killing terrorists who targeted American and Israeli interests by using precision drone strikes and also by sending special forces irrespective of their country of origin and area of operation. During his famed Israel visit, Narendra Modi invoked the subliminal emotion by hugging an 11-year-old Mumbai attack survivor, Moshe, son of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and Rivka who were brutally killed by the attackers. Moshe and Modi transformed the Mumbai attacks into an emotive issue, not a hardened securitydiplomatic matter. Moshe recited a couple of sentences from his written prose before Modi, stating ‘Dear Mr. Modi, I love you and the people of India. . . . I live in Afula, but I remember our connection to Nariman House. . . . I hope I will be able to visit Mumbai and when I get older, I will live there’. With his arm around Moshe, Modi said, ‘come and stay in India and Mumbai. You and your all family members will get long-term visas so you can come anytime and live anywhere’. Bidding farewell to Modi, the young Moshe said, ‘Always remember my parents’.19 Probably, Israel has a detailed plan as to how to fix the perpetrators of Gavriel and Rivka’s deaths. India is far too behind to evolve a policy vis-à-vis terrorists who are harming India. Ritualistically, India’s junior-level law-enforcing officials have been pleading with the United States on a regular basis for the extradition of Headley and Rana, without desirable diplomatic weight and strategic conviction. In April 2017, when Andrew George McCabe, deputy

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director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), visited India, the NIA asked him to expedite the extradition of the Mumbai attack accused.20 Nearly a dozen such requests from India are piled up at FBI headquarters since the arrest of Headley. It seems the victims of the Mumbai attacks who are awaiting action from strongman Modi and his team will have to wait for some more time.

Headley is Pardoned Continuing with India’s tryst with bitter irony, on 10 December 2015, a Mumbai special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) court granted pardon to Headley for his role in the Mumbai conspiracy. This was the last nail in the coffin of the Mumbai conspiracy trial. The case at the TADA court originally filed against Abu Jundal in July 2012 proved highly beneficial for Headley. The Maharashtra police filed a chargesheet in October 2012 and three years later on 8 October 2015 decided to file an application before the sessions judge G. A. Sanap to make Headley an accused in the 26/11 case. On 4 November 2015, the court framed charges against Abu Jundal and also allowed the city police’s plea to make Headley a co-accused and issued a summons to Headley. The court directed that Headley be produced via videoconferencing on 10 December 2015 as ‘accused number 2 and will be tried under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with the other accused’.21 On 10 December 2015, Headley became an approver and a witness in exchange of pardon under section 307 of the Criminal Procedure Code 1973. The court slapped the condition that Headley would make factual and true disclosure of the entire criminal conspiracy behind the 26/11 attack, which was promptly accepted by Headley. Thereafter, Headley was examined by the prosecution from the United States as a witness through videoconferencing on 6th and 7th February 2016 and again on 25th and 26th February 2016.22 Headley replayed his earlier confessional story by re-revealing what he had already told the NIA against the LeT and Pakistan’s spy agency the InterServices Intelligence (ISI). The stupidity of public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and the Mumbai police theoretically made a mockery of the case. The Mumbai attacks case is replete with weighty evidences, watertight documentary proofs and undeniable physical evidence against all accused. Headley’s own confession before a US court and also before the NIA in June 2010 amply proved his role as a conspirator and expansively established the grand

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plan. There was nothing left to be told by Headley to the TADA Court as his confessional statement was already extracted by a US court and also by Indian interrogators. Making him a prosecution witness and pardoning him on flimsy grounds was a direct assault on the judicious expectations of a billion Indians. The ghosts of 166 innocent victims, who wanted Headley to be punished, must have been feeling rude shocks at this brazen and bizarre betrayal. The court reasoned that since there is no direct evidence against Abu Jundal, ‘the evidence of co-conspirators like Headley could be of immense importance for the prosecution’. ‘It is very difficult to get such direct evidence and firsthand accounts of criminal conspiracy’, the judge helplessly noted. Rather than applying the full might of lady justice’s sword on Headley, the judge with a meek and submissive tone requested the dreaded terrorist to ‘disclose full and true facts’ and ‘disclose what he has admitted before the U.S. court’.23 Strangely, all information the judge wanted from Headley is already available in the public domain, in the US Court and on the Internet. The TADA court with a mere stroke of a pen could have obtained all evidence about Headley from the US court. The confessional statement is already available with the NIA. If the judge had no trust in the NIA’s interrogation report of 2010 or the FBI’s information, then he could have directly asked for the case file from the US court in Illinois where Headley has frankly admitted his role in the Mumbai terror attacks. Public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and the Mumbai Police faltered in protecting public interests at the TADA session court. On the one hand, they miserably failed to produce direct evidence against one Mumbai conspirator Abu Jundal who was directing the attack from the control room in Pakistan; on the other hand, they created space for pardoning David Headley, another conspirator who identified the targets for the terrorists. In the annals of Indian judicial history, this will be the single most important but failed case presided over by a state agency and by a public prosecutor. The court charitably granted pardon to Headley, without giving a thought to the legal rights of the 166 victims. Basically, the entire drama was an American trap where the American court pronounced an order stating that Headley, as per his plea bargain, was bound to assist law enforcement agencies across the globe through videoconferencing. The American court did so to avoid the extradition of Headley.24 The Indian public prosecutor fell into the American trap, not only losing extradition but pardoning Headley for his crime.

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Headley’s sojourn as a Casanova FBI double agent to a dreaded LeT terrorist to a remorseless Mumbai attack conspirator to an Indian prosecution witness was rather brief. It is nothing short of a bitter irony that a mere session court could pardon a terror conspirator who singlehandedly presided over the reconnaissance of the attacks and selection of persons who should die during their dreadful operationalization. Headley was pardoned with surprising ease for one of the more spectacular and ghastly terror strikes of the 21st century that killed 166 innocent victims. In a country where even the living find it hard to get justice from the court system, expecting judicious decisions for the dead victims is like living in a fool’s paradise.

The Victims’ Perspective: A Forgotten Affair In his searing criminal indictment ‘The Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny’, Soviet historian Anton Vladimirovich AntonovOvseyenko said, ‘when one man dies it’s a tragedy. When thousands die it’s statistics’.25 The death of 166 innocent persons in the gruesome Mumbai attacks remained a statistic for the world. All the agencies including the provincial and federal governments, mainstream media, institutionally commissioned case studies and reports of the security establishment focused their assessment on the material loss, damage of property and terror angle of the unfortunate incident. The court indictment also paid attention to the criminal side of the story. Nobody ever tried to understand the pain of the victims who died in the attacks, the suffering of the survivors whose lives were crippled through no fault of their own, the lives of the families after the deaths of their sole breadwinners, and the unending trauma of the near and dear of the 166 families. As per the Government of India’s compensation policy, each of the victims of the Mumbai terror attacks was entitled to a paltry three lakh rupees as compensation from the federal government. Eight years after the attacks, in a court hearing, the Mumbai police filed an affidavit informing the court that until November 2016, only 102 families had been given the compensation of three lakh rupees that the government was supposed to hand over.26 For the rest, including the foreigners, the government is still trying to locate their kin so that the compensation can be handed over to them. In the official records both at New Delhi and Mumbai, the government has disbursed the compensation for the victims. But on the ground,

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the money is yet to reach more than 60 families. In the case of the 30 people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Tamil Nadu who died in the terror attacks, the state government is still awaiting information from the respective state district collectors. As for the twenty-six unfortunate foreign tourists who fell to the assassins’ bullets, the paltry compensation money did not reach their families as the state government failed to get their information from the respective embassies. While one family of the deceased refused to accept the compensatory money, two bodies could not be identified and four deceased were declared ineligible for compensation. Of the 102 families who received compensation, 22 were security personnel who lost their lives during the attacks. These 22 families received 25 lakh rupees each from the state government. All the high-decibel campaigns and charitable remarks from eminent people about the victims is now lost in oblivion. Starting from 2008 until August 2016, the next of kin of persons killed or civilians who suffered permanent incapacitation as a result of such violence were paid three lakh rupees as per the provisions of the Central Scheme for Assistance to Civilian Victims of Terrorist, Communal, Naxal violence.27 As per the scheme, families of victims would still be eligible to get assistance even if they were receiving any other assistance, by way of payment of ex gratia or any other type of relief from the government or any other source, except when a similar scheme was already being implemented by the central government. In August 2016, the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Modi increased the grant from three lakh rupees to five lakh rupees.28 By comparing the Indian compensation policy with the United States’ 3.1 million dollars per civilian killed during the 9/11 attacks,29 it is clear that the US compensation policy is not linked with the number of persons or kind of people killed but is meant for the very notion of death that has unfortunately and untimely hit any individual. Away from government glare, Ratan Naval Tata showed exemplary charity and personally visited the families of all 80 employees who were affected in some manner, either through injury or by being killed. In a mission mode, Ratan Tata personally attended funeral after funeral over three days to assure his employees that he cared for them and valued their services.30 All the employees of the Taj Palace Hotel, the iconic building that bore the brunt of the most part of the terror attacks, got their full salaries when the hotel was under repair. The victims’

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story was less appealing to the mass media. The bureaucracy wanted to build a monument on the dead wreckage of those unfortunate victims. Combinedly they made the matter a forgotten affair.

The LeT: The Group behind the Mumbai Siege The LeT, the terror organization responsible for the Mumbai attacks, is growing from strength to strength. It continues to be a dreaded organization against the interests of India. In fact, the LeT’s survival and growth directly corresponds to its lethality against India. In the past few years, the LeT has evolved from a hoard of storm troopers/bomb detonators to the role of terror mastermind regulating the course of India-centric terror operations in India and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the LeT collaborates with the Haqqani network against Indian interests, while in India it solicits the support of home-grown radicals like Indian Mujahideen and Wahhabi extremists. What is more alarming is Hafiz Saeed, the LeT leader, is now participating in the Pakistan Army’s India-centric strategic sessions where decisions are made about precipitating border conflagration with India. In Pakistan, the ban on the LeT was lifted long ago, and as Nawaz Sharif’s foreign policy advisor Sartaj Aziz has confessed, the organization is not disturbed by Pakistan. Since 10 April 2015, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the operational commander and one of the masterminds of the Mumbai attacks, has been a freed man. Justice Anwarul Haq of the Lahore High Court ordered Lakhvi’s bail.31 Hafiz Saeed, the supreme leader of the LeT, was a free man until President Donald Trump took office in January 2017. On 30 January 2017, immediately after Trump’s inauguration and his travel ban order for six Muslim countries, Saeed was detained under Section 11-EEE (1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1977 of Pakistan. Before that, the Lahore High Court had ordered his release and the Supreme Court pronounced that the prosecution did not have enough evidence against Saeed to charge him. Since then, Saeed has been roaming freely, organizing anti-India rallies and openly conducting fundraising for his campaigns. The group has been directly involved in many attacks against India, including the attack on the army base at Uri in Kashmir in October 2016. The LeT is also collaborating with other groups in India to orchestrate terror plots.

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Meanwhile, other terror groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have made their presence felt in India. The two groups announced their intention to make India one of their targets. When all terror dots are joined, the announcement looks perilous. Rather than acting on the indirect but very strong lead about Al-Qaeda, the Indian security agencies are foolishly trying to locate direct evidence about Al-Qaeda. Since there is no hard evidence regarding Al-Qaeda’s presence, agencies are becoming complacent. Direct evidence will never be available. Therefore, it is elemental for agencies to take the threat seriously and pre-empt the group’s agenda. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been hosting Al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal area for a price. The Haqqani Network, TTP and Al-Qaeda have been sharing training centres, terror manuals and safe havens in Pakistan. Since the NIA has already unravelled the TTP’s connection with the Burdwan blast, Al-Qaeda’s footprint in India is undeniable. ISIS is the surprise and latest entrant into the troubled terrorist landscape of India. It is difficult for the group to gain a foothold in India as the environs are not suitable, but it would certainly compete with Al-Qaeda to draw recruits from India and to assert a monopoly over Indian militants. This competition, which has already started, is making India susceptible. Although the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have already extended their combat role in Afghanistan, the thin troop presence would allow the Afghan Taliban to consolidate their base. Al-Qaeda will enjoy a safe haven in the Taliban-controlled area of Afghanistan, and it can’t be denied that in future there will be the possibility of forming one caliph by merging Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS. India’s extremist landscape is not dominated by one religious group but is governed by Muslim, Hindu and Christian factions. Cumulatively, as many as 226 terrorist organizations are operating in India, of which 39 are banned by the federal government. At a time when Muslim youth populations from all over the world are gravitating to the Middle East to join hands with radical groups, Indian Muslims to a great extent have resisted the tide. India is the world’s third largest Muslim nation. With a whopping 172 million Muslims, of whom the majority are Sunni and 35 per cent are under 35 years of age, India is a promising recruitment ground for Islamic terrorist organizations. India keeps telling the world that it has been successful

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in de-radicalizing Muslim youth. Diplomats across the world are impressed with India’s so-called resilience and success in keeping the ideologies of groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS at bay. The daily drudgery of life, community living, Sufi moderation and living in a plural society are some of the natural ingredients of India’s de-radicalization programme. De-radicalization as a strategy to counter the menace of terrorism is the bedrock of India’s counter-terror programme especially when there is a chance of cross-fertilization of ISIS with the communist party of India-Maoist and when ISIS sympathizers reveal that the group’s global headhunters from countries like Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Argentina are stalking Indian youth to lure them into ISIS’ fold.

The Mumbai Attacks, Indo-Pak Relations and India’s Global Standing The Mumbai attack became a thorn in Indo-Pak diplomatic relations. In March 2012, India allowed a team of an eight-member Pakistani commission comprising defence lawyers, prosecutors and a court official to visit India on a four-day trip to gather evidence for the prosecution of seven suspects linked to the Mumbai attacks. The commission met police officers who were part of the investigation in Mumbai and doctors who conducted autopsies on the terrorists and victims. However, when the commission presented evidence in August 2012 at the anti-terrorism court in Pakistan that was trying Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and others accused, the court rejected the findings, terming the probe report a waste of time on the grounds that its members were not allowed to cross-examine the witnesses. India’s generous gesture to Pakistan failed to break the ice and the stalemate continues. Pakistan never offered such a gesture to India. Since 2014, when Narendra Modi came to power, India has adopted various strategies vis-à-vis Pakistan. The reaction to the January 2016 Pathankot air base attack was the old traditional approach of ‘strategic-restraint’. But the assault on the army base camp at Uri in September 2016 provoked a very different response. The Uri attack inspired the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his team to present more options to deal with an unrepentant Pakistan. India’s public angst, caused by the bizarre theory of limited options against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, was a source of constant concern for

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the government. For every case in which foreign forces are involved, the NSA in consultation with the foreign office is expected to prepare a response. In the past, the response was limited to severing dialogue, the reduction of bilateral engagement, deployment of the army at eyeball-to-eyeball distance and as a final gambit an ‘appeal to the international community’, especially the United States, to task Pakistan for action against terrorist sanctuaries.32 Throwing old-style caution aside, the government began with an indictment of Pakistan-inspired terror at the UN general assembly, suspended the 56-year-old biannual Indus Water Treaty meeting, withdrew from the 19th South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Islamabad, and lined up Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives as abstainers to speak up against Pakistan’s use of terror as an ‘instrument of state policy’.33 In parallel, and upping the ante, the government authorized coordinated ‘surgical hits’ across the Line of Control and for once deployed all its diplomatic assets to neutralize or soften the reactions of the great powers, including Pakistan’s all-weather friend China. Before the dust of Uri and the Indian riposte could settle, India hosted the heads of state of BRICS (British economist Jim O’Neill coined BRIC in 2001 with Brazil, Russia, India and China as members; South Africa was added later) countries in Goa. In a restricted session of the summit, Modi spearheaded a hurricane of outbursts against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, calling the country the ‘mother ship of terrorism’, and saying that terrorist modules around the world were linked to the mother ship. He appealed to BRICS to ‘stand and act together against this threat’.34 But this was an off-the-record discussion and not part of the main sessions. Modi also engaged the BIMSTEC nations (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Sri Lanka), as part of the BRICS outreach, which offered him an opportunity to expand his tirade against Pakistan. Addressing the BRICS-BIMSTEC leaders, Modi again invoked Pakistan’s embrace and radiation of terror. Modi’s managers, however, failed to convince BRICS members, especially China, to mention Pakistan’s role in exporting terrorism in the joint declaration. It ended without mentioning the Uri attack, and India’s attempt to isolate Pakistan was blocked by the Chinese wall. India reached the limit of its diplomatic ingenuity at the BRICS summit. The declaration ritualistically condemned ‘terrorism in all its forms and manifestations’.

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Any debate about an Indo-Pakistan conflict and Pakistan’s descent into chaos leads to dark delusions of a scenario where Pakistani jihadis could get hold of a nuclear arsenal. Global analysts shudder at the thought of Pakistan’s slide into disarray as it is the only country with more than 100 nuclear weapons and a powerful militant insurgency in its midst. It is feared by all that the jihadis are desperate to acquire the bomb and use it. The country’s governing structure, which veers between a military dictatorship that supports terrorists and a democratically elected leadership that is chiefly corrupt and inefficient, is not helpful either. Against this background, the surgical strikes were a large and risky bet which Narendra Modi placed to change the discourse. They provided fresh oxygen to the morale of the army and also the pride of its citizens. The Pathankot attack and the subsequent permission for Pakistani investigators to visit the crime scene—without getting anything in return—was the low-water mark of Modi’s neighbourly policy. India’s strong economy and growth rate was one of the major reasons for India’s strategic restraint. National interest is counted in terms of the size of economy. India has a US$2.28 trillion economy compared to Pakistan’s paltry US$270 billion economy. But this policy had to be measured against rising frustrations of citizens and declining troop morale. The surgical strikes provided a perfect response.35 Suddenly under tremendous pressure from all circles, Pakistan has been playing footsie with Russia and China to checkmate India. Since mid-2015, it has become evident that Russia has significantly altered its engagement with India to accommodate Pakistani interests. Foreign analysts think that India’s recent diplomatic slowing down with Russia is part of collateral damage because of Russia’s broader diplomatic great game against the United States, where Pakistan is acting as a proxy of Russia. Therefore, a meagre amount of concession for the proxy is expected. But even scant favour to Pakistan by Russia is a diplomatic defeat for India. Russian diplomat Zamir N. Kabulov, who also worked as a spy with Russian intelligence agency Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, is the architect of the Russia–Pakistan tie, which has become a growing annoyance for India.36 The Zamir N. Kabulov doctrine advocates a reorientation of Russian relations with Pakistan and China purportedly not at the cost of India. Kabulov argues that

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since India is siding too much with the United States, France and the likes, who are the traditional rivals of Russia, it is essential for Russia to pay India with the same coin.37 With adequate sarcasm, Kabulov highlighted how India’s policy of facilitating the production of F-16s to be made in India, which Lockheed Martin is selling to arch-rival Pakistan to target India, is an unthinkable economic and diplomatic enterprise. In the Russia–China–Pakistan diplomatic jigsaw puzzle, India is at a crossroads. On 14 May 2017, President Putin attended the Chinese global spectacle the ‘Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation’, where 29 heads of state along with representatives of over 100 countries were present. The Belt and Road Forum (BRF), also identified as ‘One Belt One Road’ and ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ and the ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’, is part of President Xi Jinping’s 2013 initiative. The BRI imagines a US$1.3 trillion Chinese-led investment programme consisting of six land corridors and one maritime Silk Road as its components. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the flagship programme of the BRF. China claimed that the initiative will usher a new era of trade and development. China’s ‘modern Silk Road’ project envisions construction of ‘pipelines and a port in Pakistan’, ‘bridges in Bangladesh’ and ‘railways to Russia’.38 Russian participation in the BRF with the backdrop of its assurance that Russia is not investing in CPEC is alarming for India. Not only Russia but also the British, French, Turkish and other European countries descended on Beijing to participate in the BRF. Shedding inhibitions even the United States had sent a delegation to the forum to participate on their behalf. Pakistan sent an entire political corps including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, four chief ministers from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan and half a dozen ministers to embrace the CPEC at the BRF summit.39 At one point, it looked like India, with its avowed disapproval of the CPEC project for its transgression of India’s sovereignty by running the road through the heart of Jammu and Kashmir, was isolated. But before the dust of the BRF settled, the European Union dealt a scathing blow to the Chinese bid as the 28 member states unanimously refused to endorse a statement prepared by Beijing to mark the end of the summit, citing China’s lack of commitment to social and environmental sustainability and transparency.

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India has been employing an entire corps of foreign policy experts and military strategists to revert this trend. The visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Russia in June 2017 is being held against the backdrop of a grim diplomatic squabble in between the two countries on Russia’s perceptible tilt towards Pakistan at the cost of India. At the surface level, considering its economic backbone, India’s position as a global player is robust. But on every single issue, starting from the United Nations Security Council seat to the Nuclear Suppliers Group membership and from the passing of the UNSC resolution 1267 to strategic ties with Russia, India has been facing stiff resistance from its adversaries. Although, only time can tell if these are natural and effacing bottlenecks of the communist era or if India is paying the price for her professional complacency; certainly India’s international reputation has been facing a serious test. India has traditionally been a conventional country that is never proactive and not reactive. However, it has a tremendous capacity to absorb setbacks and rise from debacles. Even if the present time is not best for her international diplomacy and to advance her regional interests, India’s internal mechanisms are strong and her human capital will reverse the setback sooner rather than later.

A Ready Reckoner of the Mumbai Attacks (The Kingpin of the Mumbai Attacks – the ISI’s Complicity) David Coleman Headley (Original name Daood Sayed Gilani, American citizen of Pakistani descent. Arrested by the US Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA], in 1987 but due to his usefulness the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]-DEA made him a secret agent and sent him to Afghanistan and Pakistan to net drug dealers.) ↓ ↓ Headley joined the LeT at Qadisia Mosque in Lahore after 11 September 2001 and attended LeT training during 2002–2005, but the LeT did not offer any terror assignment. ↓

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The FBI was alerted by Headley’s girlfriend in October 2001 and by Headley’s neighbour in July 2002 about his radical connections. During this period, he was a double agent. ↓ ↓ Major Ali and Major Shiraj of the ISI arrested Headley in 2006 at the Pak-Afghan border. Major Ali sent Headley to ISI agents in Lahore for his future use. ↓ ↓ The ISI’s Major Iqbal and Major Hashim (and another NonCommissioned Officer of the ISI) received him in Lahore and trained him to recce for the Mumbai attacks. Headley used to brief Major Iqbal at the ‘ISI Headquarters’ in Rawalpindi.

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Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Canadian doctor of Pakistani descent and a deserter from the Pakistan army, was roped in. The ISI promised him safe return to Pakistan in exchange for his help to Headley.

Sajid Majid of the LeT was the handler of Headley (meetings used to happen at Bait-ul-Mujahideen camp in Muzaffarabad, PoK). ↓ ↓ Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed used to summon Headley to the LeT headquarters in Muridke, Lahore, to brief them about the reconnaissance in Mumbai. ↓ ↓ Until his retirement, the ISI officer Brigadier Riyaz was the handler of Zaki-ur-Rehman. After his retirement, Zaki-urRehman and Hafiz Saeed have been directly interacting with the DG of the ISI.

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↓ ↓ Headley’s information became the single biggest source for the Mumbai attacks. The ISI used his recce for bombing Pune in 2010. ↓ On 3 October 2009, the FBI arrested Headley in Chicago not because of his involvement in the Mumbai attacks but to protect Europe from an imminent bombing and to secure New York’s Empire State Building from any such future attacks.

The Indian Judicial Behemoth and How Headley and Rana Have Been Systematically Saved by the CIA The Maharashtra Police filed 12 cases at different police stations and the case continued in a Special Session Court at the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai. Bombay High Court on 11 February 2009 appointed M.L. Tahiliani as the trial court judge and the special court was set up in the Arthur Road Jail premises in Mumbai. ↓ On 25 Feb. 2009, the Mumbai Police filed an 11,280-page chargesheet. The ISI name does not figure in the chargesheet and only one paragraph was devoted to the LeT. ↓ Charges were filed against 44 Pakistanis, Ajmal Kasab and 9 fedayeen militants killed during the operation and 35 wanted charged in absentia. Two Indian terrorists, Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, were arrested from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, respectively. ↓ The Special Court refused to accept the role of David Headley, the most vital LeT terrorist, arrested in the United States, during the course of the trial of the case. Even the Mumbai prosecution refused to take notice of David Headley who was spilling the beans against the ISI. ↓ On 3 May 2010, the Special Sessions Court pronounced its verdict, sent Kasab to the gallows and acquitted Ansari and Ahmed (despite the fact that sketches of Mumbai were discovered in the possession of Ansari and Ahmed on 10 February 2008, long before the Mumbai attacks). ↓

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Kasab appealed at the Bombay High Court on 4 June 2010. The arguments of the state as well as Kasab on the death penalty began from 17 October 2010 on a day-to-day basis and ended on 7 January 2011. The NIA interrogated Headley in June 2010 but those materials were not produced before the High Court. ↓ Bombay High Court on 21 February 2011 delivered the judgement and upheld the death sentence of Kasab and acquitted Ansari and Ahmed. ↓ On 29 July 2011, Kasab approached the Supreme Court. On 2 September 2011, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the plea of the Maharashtra Government against the acquittal of the two accused. The verdict of the Supreme Court came on 29 August 2012 and dismissed both the appeals on expected lines. Kasab’s death sentence was upheld. The appeals of the Maharashtra Government against the acquittal of Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed were dismissed rather cheaply with only two paragraphs devoted to them in the 398-page judgement. (The union home ministry was reluctant to share the damning details on the Mumbai attacks with the Mumbai prosecutor because Nikam was not a government lawyer. He was a private lawyer hired by the Maharashtra Government for the Mumbai trial. In a secret cable dated 26 February 2010, the US Ambassador in India, Timothy Roemer, informed his home government that Home Minister P. Chidambaram had stated that India might not be using impeccable evidence against the perpetrators of the 26/11 attackers because of the suffocating legal intricacies and opaqueness in the evidence process. Chidambaram said that the Government of India would not file formal charges against Headley until the trial of Kasab was finished for fear that Kasab would use the Headley charges as a way to delay conclusion of his own trial.) ↓ Meanwhile, after the terror attacks, the NIA was given the responsibility of investigating the wider angle of the Mumbai attacks and the involvement of Headley and Rana. The NIA registered a case on 11 November 2009 against Headley and Rana in Delhi for allegedly plotting terror attacks in India. As fresh facts started emerging and the involvement of officers from the Pakistan army and the ISI came out, it filed no less than four chargesheets in the same case. On 21 July 2010, a Delhi court issued non-bailable warrants (NBWs) against five Pakistanis,

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charging them with facilitating terrorist attacks in India – Karachi residents Sajid Mir and Major Hashim, Pakistan army officers Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali, and PoK resident Illyas Kashmiri. ↓ While the Mumbai trial went wayward in India, another conspirator, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, was acquitted by a US court from his involvement in the Mumbai conspiracy. ↓ The FBI filed the chargesheet on 21 October 2009 at the Chicago court. In the 48-page chargesheet of Rana and Headley, the name Mumbai never occurred. The FBI’s scheme came to light only after the acquittal of Rana from the Mumbai conspiracy charge and refusal of extradition of Headley to India. The FBI agents knew that if they implicated Rana in the Mumbai conspiracy and if there was a judgement against Rana in a US court, it would be hard on the part of the United States to deny extradition of Rana to India. Hence, the case was deliberately kept weak from the very beginning. Similarly, Headley’s chargesheet also did not mention his role in the Mumbai attacks. ↓ The only mention about India found in the chargesheet was when the agent wrote about a proposed attack plan of the LeT in India after the Mumbai attacks and the involvement of Rana in that plot. The FBI claimed that Rana was involved in India-related conspiracies only after the Mumbai attacks, during the months of July–August 2009, when Headley was in India on his tenth and final visit. The LeT’s attack on Mumbai killed 137 Indian citizens and 29 foreigners from 15 countries. Out of the 29 foreigners, 6 were American citizens. When the Headley and Rana affair surfaced, the international news media as well as foreign governments started taking interest. The American press started asking uncomfortable questions to the US government. The US government succumbed to the growing international pressure and was forced to include the names of Headley and Rana as conspirators in the Mumbai case. Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the US attorney, filed an additional memorandum at the Northern District of Illinois on 14 December 2009, more than two months after the arrest of Headley, before the District Judge, Nan R. Nolan. ↓ The jury’s verdict surprised everybody, including Rana. It found Rana guilty of supporting plans to attack the Danish newspaper

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but acquitted him of the more serious charge of helping to plot the Mumbai attacks. The jury also found Rana guilty of a third charge, which involved providing support to the LeT before and after the Mumbai attacks. The split verdict dealt a blow to both Rana, who got a 30-year jail term, and the US government, which expressed disappointment at the jury’s decision involving the Mumbai attacks’ charge. ↓ The irony of the judgement was that the jury found Rana guilty of assisting the LeT before and after the attack but surgically detached him from the Mumbai operation, in the midst of his comprehensive support to the LeT. The final verdict, pronounced on 17 January 2013, sentenced him to jail for 14 years. ↓ On the intervening night of 19 and 20 June 2012, the federal security forces netted Abu Jundal at Delhi’s international airport after a 43-month long international manhunt. ↓ The arrest of Abu Jundal started an ugly and visionless cat fight amongst various state organs – primarily involving the Mumbai and Delhi Police. Delhi’s Tis Hazari court, where Jundal was tried, rejected the Mumbai police’s numerous pleas to have a hand on Jundal. The NIA poked its nose in and wanted custody of Jundal. An esplanade court issued a warrant against Jundal, and the Delhi judge respected the judicial decorum and agreed to send Jundal to the custody of the Mumbai police.

The LeT–Inter Services Intelligence’s Joint Planning and Execution of the Mumbai Attacks Ajmal Kasab in December 2007 in search of a livelihood arrived at the LeT’s Raja Bazaar office in Rawalpindi. ↓ ↓ LeT officials guided him to the LeT headquarters at Muridke. ↓ ↓ He received four stages of training from various army officers like Major Haroon-ul-Islam (10th Punjab Regiment Army officer on loan

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to the LeT since 2001); Captain Khurram (6th Baloch Regiment & SSG Army officer on loan to the LeT since 2003); Major Abdur Rehman Hashim (6th Baloch Regiment Army officer on loan to the LeT) or LeT trainers who were trained by the above-mentioned army officers. ↓ ↓ Terrorists were offered sea training at Karachi under the supervision of a ‘Major General’ whose name was not known to Kasab. The LeT also undertook marine training from 2005 at Mangla Dam (which is under Pakistan army’s protection) and at Neelam River in PoK. ↓ ↓ On 13 November 2008, Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman, Muzzammil alias Yusuf, Abu Alkama, Abu Hamza, Abu Kahfa and Abu Umer Saeed and 10 attackers gathered at Bait-ul-Mujahideen Camp in Muzaffarabad to finalize the Mumbai attack. ↓ ↓ ISI Lt. Col. Hamza was in charge overall of the Mumbai plot. Major Sameer Ali and Major Iqbal Choudhary worked under him and coordinated Headley and liaised with the LeT leaders to finalize the attack plan. Col. Shah of the ISI was another officer who used to liaise with the LeT. ↓ ↓ The attackers were taken to the LeT’s Karachi safe house where Zarar Shah, the LeT head of media wing, showed the videos of attack sites gathered by Headley. Kahfa was shown the handmade maps prepared by Sabauddin Ahmed and Fahim Ansari. ↓ ↓ The Mumbai attacks were choreographed from the LeT’s control room in Karachi’s Quaidabad area. After the attacks, the ISI destroyed the control room. Like the Mumbai attacks control room, the ISI destroyed Osama’s hideout in February 2012 in Abbottabad. Abu Jundal, Muzammil, Rehan alias Junaid alias Khalid, Abu Kahfa, Abu Al Kama, Abu Zarar and the ISI officer Major Sajid Meer were present in the Karachi control room.

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Financial Inflow for the Mumbai Attacks The LeT raised millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during Hajj and Ramadan. ↓ ↓ Sarfaraz Nawaz, an Indian citizen from Kerala, arrested in Oman, revealed that Wali, alias Rehan, a Pakistani national, and an Omani citizen, Abdul Aziz al Hooti, collected funds for the LeT in the Gulf region. They procured some of the SIM cards for the 26/11 attackers. ↓ ↓ In Qatar, LeT operations are looked after by Abu Farris whose main work is to attract Indian expatriates to jihad. ↓ ↓ In May 2010, Uttar Pradesh police arrested a Pakistani national and an ISI operative Waqas Ahmad in Bithoor on the outskirts of Kanpur. The phone number he used to contact his handlers for funds was the same one that Headley had used to speak with three serving Pakistan army personnel. ↓ ↓ On 14 September 2006, Major Iqbal gave Headley $25,000 in three bundles ($10,000, $10,000 and $5,000) at his residence at 6, Canal Bank Road, in Lahore. ↓ ↓ On 4 September 2007, Major Iqbal again gave Headley an undisclosed amount of counterfeit Indian currency to use in India. The firearms seized from the possession of the terrorist bear the manufacturing mark of the Pakistan government’s ordinance factory. ↓ ↓ In 2009–10, the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz-led government of Punjab province provided 82.77 million Pakistani rupees to Jamaatul-Dawa and its allied institutions. ↓ ↓

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In August 2008, Sajid and Headley travelled from Muzaffarabad to Rawalpindi to buy all the necessary equipment for the attackers. For Headley’s April 2008 India visit for locating the landing site for the attackers, Sajid provided 40,000 Pakistani rupees. ↓ ↓ The LeT used its own money for obtaining a boat to sail towards Mumbai from Karachi. The first boat, which the voyagers used during the abortive attempt in September 2008, cost the LeT 25 lakh Pakistani rupees. The boat got damaged. So during the second and successful cruise, the terrorists hijacked an Indian boat, hence it did not cost anything to the LeT. ↓ ↓ Dr Tahawwur Hussain Rana sent an unspecified amount of money twice to Headley, which he used to collect from a bank just opposite the Oberoi Hotel in the Marine Drive area of Mumbai.

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Notes Introduction 1. Indian investigators seized the five GPS systems and three Garmin map sets the strangers were carrying. The GPS trackers had a sea route map from Karachi to Mumbai and a list of way points. Prints of 60 such maps showing the route and distance in nautical miles were submitted to the Special Sessions Court by the investigators; Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case, Mumbai Common Investigation, 25 February 2009, File 2, pp. 393–429. 2. Ibid., p. 11. 3. Mumbai Police, Final Report in the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, 37th Court, Esplanade, Mumbai, 2009; 12 such FIRs were filed at various police stations in Mumbai. 4. From beginning to end, the torture and killing was consistent. Information percolating through audio recordings of the terrorists’ conversation with their handlers, CCTV footages and video recording of the crime scenes by news channels; Source: CCTV footage accessed by the author; Mumbai Police, 2009. Conversation of the Terrorists with their Handlers, Common Investigation, File 1, Detection Crime Branch, CID, Mumbai, Talk No. 26–30. 5. Mumbai Police, Conversation of the Terrorist with their Handlers, Common Investigation, File 1, Detection Crime Branch, CID, Mumbai, Talk No. 26, 27T4329K.08B_11_27-Nov-08. 6. Walker, Not Yet Dark, pp. 151–56. 7. Ibid., p. 140. 8. Ibid., p. 141. 9. India and Pakistan exchanged 13 dossiers on the Mumbai attacks until November 2010; Ministry of External Affairs, Dossier on Mumbai Terrorist Attacks November 26–29, 2008. Government of India, January 2009, author’s collection. 10. Indian security forces’ encounter with armed terrorists was only known to Kashmir; see Swami, India Pakistan and the Secret Jihad. 11. L. K. Advani, Statement on Bomb Blasts in Delhi. XII Lok Sabha Debates, Session II, 27 July 1998. 12. Arun Jaitley,‘Terrorism and India’, Lalit Doshi Memorial Lecture, http:// www.hvk.org/specialarts/terrorism/terrorism.html (accessed 2 July 2010).

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13. Karthikeyan and Raju, Triumph of Truth: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination, The Investigation, New Dawn Press, pp. xxiv and 17. 14. Indian security forces claim that suicide attacks and terrorism in Kashmir almost ended in the year 2004–05. Author’s interview with Vidhi Kumar Virdi, City Superintendent of Police, Srinagar, 24 May 2009. 15. Mumbai Police, Final Report In the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, 37th Court, Esplanade, Mumbai, 2009, p. 1. 16. Jon Boone and Julian Borger, ‘Taliban militants attack Afghan capital’, The Guardian, 18 January 2010. 17. Interrogation of German citizen of Afghan descent Ahmed Sidiqi in Kabul in July 2010; Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank, ‘Europe Warned of Mumbai Style Attacks’, CNN, 29 September 2010. 18. Mumbai Police, Final Report In the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, 37th Court, Esplanade, Mumbai, 2009, p. 2. 19. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 337. 20. Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan. Afghanistan, and Central Asia, p. 27. 21. Dalton Fury, the CIA officer who led the campaign against bin Laden in Tora Bora in an interview to the National Geographic, 12 November 2011. 22. Ilyas Kashmiri’s interview to Syed Saleem Shahzad, ‘Al-Qaeda’s Guerrilla Chief Lays Out Strategy’, Asia Times Online, 15 October 2009. 23. Yousuf and Adkin, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap, The Defeat of a Superpower, p. 105. 24. Ministry of External Affairs, Press Release on Launch of US Military strikes in Afghanistan, Government of India, 8 October 2001. 25. Denis Kux, 2002, ‘India’s Fine Balance’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 81, no. 3. 26. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 27. 27. For discussion see Rath, ‘Pakistan’s Double Game: Supporting and Opposing Terrorism’, pp. 92–105. 28. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 27. 29. Rath, ‘Pakistan’s Double Game: Supporting and Opposing Terrorism’, p. 98. 30. Jaswant Singh, ‘Statement to the Media’, Press Trust of India, 14 December 2001. 31. Tankel, Storming the World State: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba, p. 233. 32. Swami, India Pakistan and the Secret Jihad, p. 163. 33. Burke, Al-Qaeda, p. 97. 34. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, ‘Operation Topac’, http://www.kashmirinformation.com/Miscellaneous/OperationTopac.html (accessed 24 July 2010).

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35. Swami, India Pakistan and the Secret Jihad, p. 145. 36. Coll, Ghost War: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, p. 221. 37. Burke, Al-Qaeda, p. 98. 38. Tankel, Storming the World State: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba, p. 53. 39. Author’s interview with Gul Ahmad, a tour operator from Baramula in Gulmarg, 21 April 2010. 40. Author’s interview with Nayim Khan (a fourth-grade employee at the Raj Bagh Police Station of Srinagar) in Srinagar who hosted the militants on some occasions, 26 May 2009. 41. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, p. 70. 42. Ibid., p. 61. 43. On 9 September 2008 President Zardari was sworn in as President of Pakistan; President of Pakistan, ‘The Person Behind the Politics’, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/index.ph p?lang=en&opc=2&sel=2&subsel=1 (accessed 2 July 2010). 44. Arun Shourie has made a long deliberation at the Indian Parliament on the historical connection of Mumbai attack with other previous attacks and India’s historical relations with Pakistan; see Arun Shourie, Debate on Mumbai Attacks, Rajya Sabha, 214th Session, 11 December 2008, unedited version, pp. 633–60. 45. Cloughley, A History of the Pakistan Army: Wars and Insurrections, p. 71. 46. Blood, ed., Pakistan: A Country Study, pp. 272–74; Sharma, Bangladesh Crisis and Indian Foreign Policy, pp. 157–58. 47. India had 562 princely states at the time of independence and never united as one nation before 1948; Chopra, The Sardar of India: Biography of Vallabhbhai Patel, p. 228. 48. See Henry, ‘A Plea for Compulsory Arbitration of International Disputes’, p. 1189; Lyon, Conflict between India and Pakistan: An Encyclopaedia, Dixit, India and Pakistan in War and Peace, pp. 28–55. 49. Pakistan lost 55 per cent population and half of its territory; Indian Defence Review, vol. 21 (1), January–March 2006, p. 3. 50. For discussion see Dhar, Mission to Pakistan, pp. 476–77. 51. Hussain Haqqani, ‘Pakistan’s Endgame in Kashmir’, in Ganguly, ed., Kashmir Question: Retrospect and Prospect, p. 43. 52. Chopra, Genesis of Indo-Pakistan Conflict on Kashmir, p. 53. 53. Dixit, India and Pakistan in War and Peace, p. 325. 54. The survey interviewed 3,700 people from both sides of Kashmir; Robert W. Bradnock, ‘Kashmir: Paths to Peace’, King’s College London Chatham House Sponsored Project, May 2010. 55. Paul, ed., The India Pakistan Conflict: An Enduring Conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press 2005, p. 160.

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56. Hussain, Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam, p. 13. 57. Stephen P. Cohen in Ganguly, ed., India as an Emerging Power, p. 45. 58. See Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, pp. 35–59. 59. Y. D. Gundevia, The Testament of Sheikh Abdullah, p. 17. 60. Shahid M. Amin, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: A Reappraisal, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 66. 61. Hussain, ‘Pakistan’s Endgame in Kashmir’, p. 44. 62. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, pp. 109–15. 63. Vinay Kumar Malhotra, ‘Asian Profile’, p. 243. 64. The Tribune ran a special report on ISI funding: Syed Nooruzzaman, ‘A special report: How Pakistan’s ISI funds its proxy war’, The Tribune, 28 November 1999. 65. Bhutto, Daughter of the East, p. 418. 66. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 29. 67. Deutshe Presse-Agentur, ‘US to Pressure Pakistan on Support for Taliban’, Hamburg, 12 September 2001; Ali Ahmed Rind, ‘New World Disorder: Unholy Ends’, LA Weekly, 9 November 2001; ‘Pakistani Delegation to Meet Taliban Reaches Kandahar’, Japan Economic Newswire, 17 September 2001. 68. Hassan Abbas, ‘Inside Story of Musharraf-Mahmood Tussle’, Daily Times, 26 September 2006. 69. President Bush wanted the speech to convey his moral outrage: Bush, Decision Points, p. 138; George Bush, ‘Text of President’s Speech’, White House, 20 September 2001. 70. Manmohan Singh, Debate on Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai. Lok Sabha Debate, Fourteenth Session, Part-II, Vol. XXXV, 11 December 2008. 71. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 27. 72. Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power, pp. 175–76. 73. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 28. 74. Bhutto, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West, p. 194; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival, p. 352. 75. Ejaz Haider,‘Pakistan needs strategic depth’, Express Tribune, 7 October 2011; Kamran Shafi, ‘Defining ‘strategic depth’, Dawn, 9 January 2010. 76. See Benazir Bhutto interview with Nayan Chanda, Yale Global, 9 August 2007. 77. Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, p. 186. 78. Gannon, I is for Infidel, p. 138. 79. Ibid., p. 142.

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80. Roger Hardy, ‘Pakistan’s Culture of Jihad’, BBC News, 5 August 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2002/islamic_ world/2173818.stm (accessed 28 July 2010). 81. Ayesha Jalal, ‘The Past as Present’ in Lodhi, ed., Pakistan: Beyond the Crisis State, p. 8; Rashid, Descent into Chaos; Shuja Nawaz,‘The Battle for Pakistan’, The Wall Street Journal, 19 October 2009, p. 27. 82. Shahzad, Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond bin Laden and 9/11, pp. 82–104. 83. Anatol Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country, pp. 405–76. 84. Ministry of External Affairs. Embassy of India in Tel Aviv on IndiaIsrael Bilateral Relations, http://www.indembassy.co.il/India-Israel%20 Bilateral%20relations.htm (accessed 30 July 2010). 85. Ministry of External Affairs, Annual Report 1998–99, Government of India, 1999, p. 44. 86. United News of India, Israeli Delegation Visits Army Headquarters’, Greater Kashmir, 15 June 2007. 87. Ministry of Home Affairs. Department of Border Management, Government of India, mha.nic.in/docs/BM_Intro(E)050110.doc. ‘Border Area Development Programme’ (accessed 20 December 2011). 88. ‘Army to check infiltration by 90 pc, says Gen Vij’, The Tribune, 26 April 2004. 89. Krishnadev Calamur, ‘India’s Fence Sparks Little Debate’, United Press International, Washington, 10 March 2004. 90. The ISI’s forward section 23 monitored subversive anti-India operations from PoK. It was allegedly involved in training militants and providing logistics for the proxy war against India: Ali K.Chisti, ‘Quetta Shura is now Karachi Shura’, Daily Times, 20 January 2011; Salim Shahzad, ‘Ceasefire Will not Hold, with Same Game, New Rules,’ South Asia Tribune, 30 November–6 December 2003. 91. ‘India says it has given proof of 70 Islamic militant camps in PakistanControlled Kashmir,’ Associated Press Newswires, 14 March 2003; ‘3000 Terrorists Being Trained in Pakistani Kashmir: India’, Associated Free Press, 30 July 2003. 92. K. Alan Kronstadt, in Edward V. Linden, ed. Focus on Terrorism, Vol. 6, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2003, p. 186. 93. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 17; Animesh Roul, ‘After Pune, Details Emerge on the Karachi Project and its Threat to India’, CTC Sentinel, April 2010, vol. 3, issue 4, p. 7. 94. Various sources have spoken about the presence of HuM, LeT and JeM camps in Afghanistan: see Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb — A Memoir; Coll, Ghost War and Tankel, Storming the World Stage.

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95. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 146. 96. Ibid., pp. 230–31. 97. Arjun Verma and Teresita Schaffer, ‘A Difficult Road Ahead: India’s Policy on Afghanistan’, South Asia Monitor, Number 144, Centre for Strategic & International Studies, Washington DC, 1 August 2010. 98. Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, pp. xiii–xv. 99. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 221. 100. Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 157. 101. Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi, ‘Red Trigger: Lal Masjid and its Aftermath’, International Journal of Terrorism and Political Hot Spots 2009, 4: 1–2. 102. News media reported the number at a later date; Anshuman G. Dutta, ‘Unwilling to be sitting ducks, 1700 Pakistani soldiers desert army, surrender to militants’, Mid-Day, 31 March 2009; Paul Wiseman and Zafar M. Sheikh, ‘Pakistani Police Underfunded, Overwhelmed’, USA Today, 5 May 2009. 103. Mir, Talibanization of Pakistan: From 9/11 to 26/11, p. 199. 104. Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 160. 105. The number of madrassas as admitted by President Asif Ali Zardari in 2009 was 18,000: Ahmad Rashid, ‘Pakistan on the Brink’, p. 63. 106. Bhutto, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West, p. 216. 107. Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 162. 108. Mir, Talibanization of Pakistan: From 9/11 to 26/11, p. 199. 109. Zawahiri’s four-minute address was titled ‘The Aggression against Lal Masjid’. The video was released by al-Qaeda’s media wing, As-Sahab Media; Syed Saleem Shahzad, ‘US Homes in on al-Qaeda’s new Head’, Asia Times Online, 9 July 2011. 110. Bhutto, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West, p. 217. 111. In 2005 the number of attacks was 113 and in 2007 it was 1,820: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Interior affairs, Crisis Management Cell, 2010. 112. The ISI’s effort to halt the bloodbath in Pakistan and start the same in India is extensively discussed in Shahzad, Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban. On Karachi Project, every media report is a copy-paste job of each other’s reporting and relies heavily on the single document of David Coleman Headley’s interrogation report by India’s National Investigation Agency. This classified report has been leaked to almost all leading media groups of the world. 113. ISI chief Ahmad Mahmood was sacked in October 2001 by Musharraf for the former’s connivance with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. His successor Ehsan-ul Haq was sent to a ceremonial post by Musharraf in 2004. Asfaq Pervez Kayani, the Corps Commander of X Corps in Rawalpindi, was promoted as ISI chief in October 2004. The promotion indicated Musharraf’s significant trust in Kayani. No army chief can build an army

Notes

114. 115. 116. 117. 118.

119.

120.

121. 122.

123. 124. 125.

305

coup without the help of the X Corps commander: see Ahmad Rashid, ‘Intelligence Chief Defied Musharraf to Help Taliban’, The Telegraph, 10 October 2001; Ron Moreau and Zahid Hussain, ‘The Next Musharraf’, Newsweek, 8 October 2007. Zaidi, ‘The Kargil Conflict’, Frontline, vol. 18, issue 23, 10–23 November 2001. Deepak Kapoor, ‘Shared Stakes in Safety’, The Times of India, 7 February 2012. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 225. Amit Baruah, and B. Muralidhar Reddy, ‘India, Pakistan seal deal on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus link’, The Hindu, 17 February 2005. Author’s interview with Prof. P. V. Indiresan, former director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, on 2 January 2011; author’s interview with Pradeep Nanjareddy, a research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in January 2008. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Press Release on Fifth Round Of PakistanIndia Interior/Home Secretary Level Talks On Terrorism And Drugs Trafficking, Islamabad 2008, PR. No. 358/2008; Raj Chengappa, ‘The Real Boss’, India Today, 22 December 2008, pp. 17–23. Handpicked by Sonia Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh never won an election and was nominated as a member of Rajya Sabha. A Wikileaks cable revealed that the Congress’s ‘inner coterie’ around the Gandhi family wielded actual power while Dr Singh was a shadow prime minister. The PM was acting as a corruption-free technocrat handling governance, who remained above the political fray, while Mrs Gandhi concentrated on the constant give-and-take associated with running an enormous political party with tens of millions of members and a disparate coalition: Robert O. Blake, Congress Culture Defines Sonia Gandhi’s Role, US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 6 April 2005; Jha, Prem Shankar, ‘The Old Confidence Trick’, Outlook, 5 May 2008, p. 19. Lyla Bavadam, ‘Voting Against the National Trend’, Frontline, vol. 21, issue 11, 22 May–4 June 2004. Ashok Damodaran, ‘Namaste Goodbye Shivraj Patil’, India Today, 5 January 2009, p. 41; ‘Securing the Home Front’, India Today, 19 January 2009, p. 24. Noor ul Haq, ‘Pakistan: A Victim of Terrorism’, Vol. III, Islamabad Policy Research Institute, 2011, p. 1. See Chengappa, India Today, pp. 17–23. Gen. Musharraf’s popularity plummeting and militant attacks increasing: Amin, Akhtar, ‘Fall of Grace: Popularity Rating of Musharraf Plummeting’, Daily Times, 14 October 2007; another Pakistani daily Dawn reported Musharraf’s attempt to capture Kargil as thoughtless: Kunwar Idris, ‘From One to Nine Provinces’, Dawn, 5 December 2010.

306

Notes

126. The provocation to India is discussed in Chengappa, India Today, pp. 17–23; support to militants is discussed in Rashid, Descent into Chaos, pp. 222–30; and also in Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 84. 127. See Tankel, Storming the World Stage, p. 40. 128. India in its 26 February 2010 dossier to Pakistan accuses Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali as the ISI personnel who were involved in the planning of the attack. However, the most authentic document on the ISI’s role is the NIA report on Headley’s interrogation; Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, pp. 40–70; Press Trust of India, ‘26/11 attacks: NIA chargesheets Headley, 8 others’, The Times of India, 24 December 2011. 129. Media reporting and Shahzad’s Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban asserts this hypothesis. 130. National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, p. 90. 131. On June 2010, Headley informed his Indian interrogators what transpired between him and Kashmiri. 132. National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, pp. 100–01. 133. al-Qaeda never shied away from taking responsibility for the terrorist attack. Its media wing, As Sahab Media, never claimed credit for the Mumbai assault. 134. Apart from David Headley’s interrogation report, Shahzad’s Inside alQaeda and the Taliban is the best source consulted for this assertion. 135. Headley informed the NIA officers in great details about his journey; National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, pp. 35–37. 136. National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, pp. 38–39. 137. Contrary to this, Osama bin Laden wanted to follow the style in his abortive effort to orchestrate a similar attack in Europe in 2010; Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank, ‘Europe Warned of Mumbai Style Attacks’, CNN, 29 September 2010. 138. This is more or less the gist of Headley’s interrogation report. 139. Kashmiri was the only non-Arab who climbed to a higher position in al-Qaeda; Jason Burke, ‘Senior al-Qaeda operative killed by US missile strike in Pakistan’, The Guardian, 4 June 2011; Riedel, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of Global Jihad, p. 81. 140. Apart from the normal security forces, 120,000 Pakistani troops, comprising Pakistani army and Frontier Corps, were deployed along the border of Afghanistan. There was much debate amongst the troops as to why they were fighting with their co-religionists for America; Athar Abbas, ‘Pak Army’s Contributions’, Inter Services Public Relations,

Notes

307

press release by ISI Pakistan, 16 March 2010; Michael O’ Hanlon, Ian Livingston, and Heather Messera, ‘States of Conflict — An Update’, New York Times, 12 September 2010; The White House, ‘Report on Afghanistan and Pakistan’, Washington DC, March 2011. 141. In India, only the captured terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab was executed on 21 November 2012 four years after the attacks; in Pakistan, only Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi is in jail. He reportedly gets home-cooked food and has a lot of freedom of movement even inside the jail. 142. Priya Sahgal, ‘Breaking Point’, India Today, 15 December 2008, pp. 46–47; Smruti Koppikar,‘Vocal Demands’, Outlook, 15 December 2008, pp. 18–19; Priya Sahgal, ‘Less Than Divine’, India Today, 5 January 2009, p. 21.

Chapter 1 1. The Vedas are sacred Hindu religious scriptures. There are four Vedas — Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda; J. L. Shastri, Rigveda, Mandala-I, Hymns 44.12; 122.6; 126.1; 186.5. The only place from Afghanistan whose name is found in the Rigveda is ‘Gandhar’, and this name occurs only once in the whole text, in the general and late upamandalas of Mandala, Hymns 126.7. 2. V. D. N. Rao, Pratisarga-Parva, ‘Bhawishya Puran’. Text 17–21, Kanchi: Kamakothi Puram, 2007; the date of the Purana is disputed as it received later editing as well. Shalivahana was ruling during the 1st century CE. 3. The Khyber, the most famous of the passes, has been an immemorial trade link with Central Asian and Mediterranean communications. South of the Khyber, the main routes from the Iranian plateau are by the Gomal and the Bolan passes; Hancock, ‘The Emergence of Romani as a Koine Outside of India’, in Kenrick and Acton, Scholarship and the Gypsy Struggle, p. 6. 4. Savarkar, Hindutva, p. iv and 29. 5. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, p. 1. 6. Salman Rashid, ‘The Myth of the Silk Road’, Express Tribune, 30 June 2011; Salman Rashid. ‘A Tale from Taxila’, Express Tribune, 4 March 2011. 7. Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia, pp. 200–202. 8. The 5th-century Chinese monk, Faxian, and a 13th century Venetian merchant took this route for their return to China and Italy respectively: Nehru, Glimpses of World History, p. 141. 9. William J. Duiker and J. Jackson Spielvogel, World History, Vol. 1. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2006, p. 242. 10. Keay, China: A History, p. 203. 11. Nehru, Glimpses of World History, p. 142.

308

Notes

12. Xuanzang’s writing is famous as ‘Records of the Western Region’; Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World, 1884. 13. Author’s email correspondence with Pakistani historian Salman Rashid, 3 May 2011. 14. Keay, China: A History, pp. 240–42. 15. Auboyer, Daily Life in Ancient India. Chakrabarti, The External Trade of the Indus Civilization. 16. Author’s correspondence with Salman Rashid, 28 January 2012. 17. Fitzgerald, Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk Out of China, p. 11. 18. Nehru, Discovery of India, p. 41. 19. The Battle of Plassey, fought between the British troops, led by Robert Clive, and the Nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud-Daula, a suzerain vassal of the Mughals on 23 June 1757, put the British yoke on Bengal: Grover, and Grover, Modern Indian History, p. 73. 20. All data regarding the length of frontiers has been taken from the Ministry of Home Affairs. n.d., http://mha.nic.in/docs/BM_Intro(E)050110.doc., Department of Border Management, Government of India (accessed 16 July 2011). 21. See Guha, India After Gandhi. 22. Durrani, India and Pakistan: The Cost of Conflict, The Benefit of Peace. 23. Ministry of Law and Justice. The Armed Forces (J & K) Special Powers Act, 1990, No. 21 of 1990, The Gazette of India, Extraordinary, PART II, Section 1, Legislative Department, 11 September 1990. 24. Koithara, Crafting Peace in Kashmir, p. 36. 25. Bajwa, Jammu and Kashmir War, 1947–1948: Political and Military Perspective, pp. 308–10; Fortna, Peace Time, p. 160; Dawson, The Peacekeepers of Kashmir: The UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan. 26. The Indian Army is organized into five regional commands. 27. Bajwa, Jammu and Kashmir War, 1947–1948: Political and Military Perspective, p. 315. 28. Khan, Nuclear Weapons and Conflict Transformation: The Case of IndiaPakistan, p. 66. 29. Source: Government of Pakistan, National Assembly of Pakistan, n.d. 30. Ali, Understanding Bangladesh, pp. 211–315. 31. Harrison, Kreisberg and Kux, India & Pakistan: The First Fifty Years. 32. Cohen, ‘Pakistan: Arrival and Departure’ in Stephen P. Cohen, ed., The Future of Pakistan, pp. 22–24 and 65. 33. Wolpert, India and Pakistan: Continued Conflict of Cooperation? p. 1. 34. LeT leaders Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi indoctrinated the Mumbai attackers with the idea that war against India is the need of the hour. LeT fighters also participated in the Kargil War; Mohd. Ajmal Kasab, Mohd. Amir, Recording of Confession before

Notes

35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57.

58.

309

Mrs. R. V. Sawant Waghule, Addl. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate under Section 164 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 20–21 February 2009, p. 20–30, hereafter Confession of Kasab. The Hindu king of the Dogra clan Maharaja Hari Singh was the ruler of Kashmir during partition. Kashmir was and still is divided into three provinces: Jammu, which was Muslim majority (53 per cent) before the bloody migration of partition, Kashmir with a Muslim majority and Ladakh, with a mostly Buddhist population. There was Gilgit and Baltistan also with Shia and Ismaili Muslim-majority populations. The Dogras had conquered and brought the province under their rule in the 19th century. Lamb, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846–1990, p. 143. Jha, Kashmir, 1947: Rival Versions of History, pp. 28–34; Lamb, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846–1990. Menon, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States, pp. 136–37. Wilcox, Pakistan: The Consolidation of a Nation, p. 66. Ibid., pp. 82–83. Kaul, Freedom Struggle in Jammu and Kashmir, p. 122. Guha, India After Gandhi, p. 63. Gandhi, Patel: A Life, p. 439. Wolpert, Jinnah of Pakistan, p. 348. Menon, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States, pp. 397–400. Jalal, The State of Martial Rule, p. 44. Ibid., p. 58. Gupta, Kashmir: A Study in India-Pakistan Relations, p. 130. Dasgupta, War and Diplomacy in Kashmir: 1947–48, p. 98. Nehru initially ‘adamantly opposed’ Mountbatten’s suggestion but when the latter said, ‘India had a cast-iron case’ and the UN would promptly direct Pakistan to withdraw the raiders, Nehru consented: Hodson, The Great Divide: Britain-India-Pakistan, p. 468; Gupta, Kashmir: A Study in India-Pakistan Relations, p. 100. Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, p. 124. Gupta, Kashmir: A Study in India-Pakistan Relations, p. 140. Nehru sent Clement Atlee a telegram saying, ‘power-politics and not ethics were ruling the UNO’, quoted in Jha, Kashmir, 1947: Rival Versions of History, p. 152. Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, p. 129. Guha, India After Gandhi, p. 73. Bajwa, Jammu and Kashmir War, 1947–1948: Political and Military Perspective, p. 315. Nehru ‘displayed a map on which the Indian border stretched far west towards Pakistan, including the crucial Valley of Kashmir and even parts of west Jammu’; Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, p. 131. Alan Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 229.

310

Notes

59. Pakistan’s share of the military strength was far less than India and its equipment containing 170,000 tonnes of army stores was supposed to have come from India; Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions since 1947, p. 19. 60. Smith, China’s Tibet? Autonomy or Assimilation, p. 12. 61. United Nations, Sino-Indian Treaty, United Nations Treaty Series, vol. 299, New York 1958, pp. 57–81. 62. Jawaharlal Nehru, The Colombo Powers’ Peace Efforts. Broadcast from Colombo, 2 May 1954: Jawaharlal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches, vol. 3, March 1953–August 1957, New Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1958, p. 253. 63. China Pictorial, Number 95, July 1958, pp. 20–21. 64. There are 14 volumes of White Papers published by India which contain all correspondence. The first volume is of 157 pages. Ministry of External Affairs, Notes, Memoranda and Letters Exchanged and Agreements Signed Between the Government of India and China: White Paper 1, Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, 1954–1959. Author’s collection 1960; Author’s collection. 65. Guha, India After Gandhi, p. 318. 66. B. M. Kaul, The Untold Story, pp. 81–82. 67. J. B. Kripalani, Lok Sabha Debate. Parliament of India, 11 April 1961. 68. Ibid., 5 December 1961. 69. Guha, India After Gandhi, p. 329. 70. Ministry of External Affairs, Notes, Memoranda and Letters Exchanged and Agreements Signed Between the Government of India and China: White Paper 5, Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, 1954–1959. Author’s collection, 1960. 71. CIA, Top Secret Central Intelligence Agency Staff Study, Declassified, ‘The Sino-Indian Border Dispute Section 3: 1961–62’, 5 May 1964, p. ii. 72. Ibid., p. i. 73. Dalvi, The Himalayan Blunder: The Curtain-Raiser to the Sino-Indian War of 1962. 74. Sharma, India-China Relations: Friendship Goes with Power, p. 73. 75. Lohia, India, China, and Northern Frontiers, p. 207. 76. Karim and Singh, Kashmir: The Troubled Frontiers, p. 76. 77. Jaffrelot, A History of Pakistan and its Origins, p. 298. 78. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan, p. 138. 79. The territory ceded to Pakistan comprised elevated ground of tactical significance against the low-lying area left with India which got submerged with the rise of the Rann; Asian Recorder, Indo-Pakistan Ceasefire Agreement on Kutch, vol. XI, no. 29, 1965, p. 6555. 80. Cloughley, A History of the Pakistan Army: Wars and Insurrections, p. 68.

Notes 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

91. 92. 93.

94.

95.

96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

103.

311

Wolpert, India and Pakistan, p. 33. Srivastava, Lal Bahadur Shastri: A Life of Truth in Politics, pp. 273–75. Bhutto, If I am Assassinated, p. 92. Feldman, From Crisis to Crisis: Pakistan, 1962–1969, p. 273. India had captured some Pakistani posts in the Kargil area of Ladakh, and this helped as a bargaining counter against Pakistan: Singh, India’s Wars Since Independence, p. 508. Coakley, The Territorial Management of Ethnic Conflict, p. 144. Karlekar, Bangladesh: The Next Afghanistan?, p. 42. Nagarkar, Genesis of Pakistan, p. 443. Ahmed, Bangladesh: Past and Present, pp. 168–69. The Army General’s Headquarters show approximately 26,000 persons killed during the action by the Pakistan Army. The Commission accepted the figure; Hamadoor Rahman Commission Report 1974. Chapter 2, para-33, October 23. Hamadoor Rahman Commission Report. Chapter 2, para-33, 23 October 1974. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat, p. xi. Kissinger included a brief paragraph on his meeting with Yahya in the report he prepared on 9 July; Department of State. South Asia Crisis, 1971, Foreign Relations of the US: Diplomatic Papers, Vol. 11, United States, Washington DC, 2005, p. 241. P. N. Haksar, 25 page Secret Report entitled ‘Threat of a Military Attack or Infiltration Campaign by Pakistan’. RAW, P. N. Haksar Paper, January 1971, Subject File 220, Third Installment, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 1971. Apart from the Parsi and Sikh personnel, the general flown in to negotiate the surrender of the Pakistani forces in East Bengal, Major General J. F. R. Jacob, was a Jew and majority of the troops were Hindu, with a small sprinkling of Muslims; Tharoor, India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond, p. 53. Wolpert, India and Pakistan, p. 43. Mrs Gandhi noted, ‘We can’t afford to listen to advice that weakens us’; quoted in Ali, Understanding Bangladesh, p. 80. Wolpert, India and Pakistan, p. 43. Niazi, The Betrayal of East Pakistan, p. 187. Smith, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States: 1969–1976, pp. 439–499. Guha, India After Gandhi, p. 465. Benazir Bhutto said, ‘Not only was East Pakistan gone, but the Indian army had captured 5,000 square miles of our land in the West’; Bhutto, Daughter of the East, pp. 59–60. Schaffer, The Limit of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir, p. 122.

312

Notes

104. Haqqani, ‘Pakistan’s Endgame in Kashmir’ in Sumit Ganguly, ed., Kashmir Question: Retrospect and Prospect, p. 43. 105. Ibid., p. 44. 106. For discussion on the ISI’s plan and deniability see Pelton, Licensed to Kill, p. 45. 107. The trauma of 1971 created fertile ground for the mullah-militarymilitant collaboration and proxy war against India; Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan, p. 171; Haqqani, ‘Pakistan’s Endgame in Kashmir’. 108. Contrary to the popular claim that the ISI has been supporting insurgency since 1989, the origin could be traced back to 1971; Haqqani, Pakistan’s Endgame in Kashmir; Bhutto, If I am Assassinated, pp. 220–21. 109. Nair, Interpretation: Scenes Behind the 1971 War, p. 157. 110. Benazir Bhutto, Reconciliation, pp. 150–51. 111. Afghanistan as Pakistan’s terrorist centre is widely documented; See Burke, Al-Qaeda; Talbott, Engaging India; Coll, Ghost War; Rashid, Descent into Chaos. 112. Ace, The Indian Express journalist Arun Shourie wrote a series of articles on this issue; See Arun Shourie, The State as Charade: V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar and the Rest. 113. Ataov, Kashmir and Neighbour, p. 125. 114. Quoted in Khan, Memoirs of Lt. Gen. Gul Hasan Khan, p. 260. 115. Dixit, India’s Foreign Policy 1947–2003, p. 249. 116. Raphael declared on 29 October 1993 that: ‘We (USA) do not recognise the legal validity of Kashmir’s accession as meaning that Kashmir is forever an integral part of India . . . The people of Kashmir have got to be consulted in any kind of final settlement of the Kashmir dispute’; Jagmohan. My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir, p. 688. 117. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 41. 118. Ibid., p. 113. 119. Rath, ‘Lurking Attacks on India: Finding and Fighting Terrorists’, pp. 110–112. 120. Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War, p. 147; Marwah, Uncivil Wars: Pathology of Terrorism in India, p. 116, 149. 121. Arun Shourie, ‘Hazratbal Mosque Crisis: How and Why it Happened?’ The Observer, 27 October 1993. 122. Asutosha Acharya, ‘Still at Sea Against Terror’, 11 June 1999, Outlook, p. 37. 123. B. Raman, ‘Mumbai Blasts: Breakthrough in Investigations’, South Asian Analysis Group, Paper No. 131, 30 September 2006. 124. The group consisted of 10 Corps Commander Lt. Gen Mahmud Ahmed, Chief of General Staff Lieutenant Gen. Mohammed Aziz, and General Officer Commanding Frontier Constabulary of the Northern Areas

Notes

125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132.

133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145.

146.

313

Major General Javed Hassan; Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia, p. 118. Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, p. 96. Kargil Review Committee. ‘From Surprise to Reckoning’. New Delhi: Sage, 2000, pp. 91–95. Cited in Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia, pp. 117–18. Similar plan was prepared before the 1965 war; Jagmohan, My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir, p. 409. Dixit, India-Pakistan: War and Peace, pp. 75–92. Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia, p. 127. Wolpert, India and Pakistan, p. 76. A demoralised Pakistan army had to even disown its dead soldiers, particularly in the initial stages; Gurmeet Kanwal, ‘Kargil Conflict and its Unlearnt Lessons’, India Strategic, August 2009. Wolpert, India and Pakistan, pp. 73–74. Dhar, ISI-CIA-Al-Qaeda Nexus, p. 65. M. K. Dhar, ‘Securing the Home Front’, India Today, 19 January 2009, p. 24. Brajesh Mishra, IC 814 Hijacking, Fox History Channel, telecast on 20 February 2010. Ajit Doval’s interview to Bernard-Henri Levy in Bernard-Henri Levi, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, p. 256. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 114. Manoj Joshi, ‘India helped FBI trace ISI-terrorist links’, The Times of India, 9 October 2001. Praveen Swami, ‘Kandahar Plot’, Frontline, vol. 20, issue 24, 22 November–5 December 2003. Prabhu Chawla, ‘Relief and Surrender’, India Today, 10 January 2000. Jash-e-Mohammad has claimed the responsibility for the attack; ‘JeM attackers Killed’, The Tribune, 1 October 2001. Bhusan and Katyal, Attack on Parliament: Challenges before the Nation, p. 36. Amir Mir, ‘More Power to Pakistan’s Jihadis’, Asia Times Online, 2 September 2011; Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 114. Maulana Shamzai of the famous Binori Mosque was present when Azhar announced the formation of JeM on 4 February 2000. The ISI shifted its support from the HuM and HuJI to JeM. The ISI advised the HuM and HuJI leaders to follow Masood Azhar and come into one platform under the JeM. As Richard Armitage told US scholars Polly Nayak and Michael Krepon in an interview on 2 June 2005, quoted in their paper, ‘US Crisis Management in South Asia’s Twin Peaks Crisis’.

314

Notes

147. ‘US Condemns Attack on J and K Assembly’, Press Trust of India, New Delhi, 2 October 2001. 148. ‘India In No Mood To Heed Powell’, Reuters, 17 October 2001. 149. ‘Powell Tells India Anti-Terrorism Campaign Will Cast a Wide Net’, The Tribune, October 18, 2001. 150. Alan Sipress and Edward Cody, ‘US Campaign to Extend to Kashmir’, Washington Post, 18 October 2001. 151. Sawhney and Sood, Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished, p. 9. 152. Celia Dugger, ‘Week in Review: Lethal Car Bomb in Kashmir,’ New York Times, 7 October 2001. 153. Recalling the 1 October attack on the J & K Assembly, Mr. Blair in a forthright condemnation of terrorism said ‘It cannot ever be right for people to pursue their cause by slaughtering innocents’; Hari Singh, ‘Look beyond Al-Qaida, Vajpayee tells Blair’, The Tribune, 12 November 2001. 154. Dolnik and Fitzgerald, Negotiating Hostage Crises with the New Terrorists, p. 51. 155. L. K. Advani, ‘Statement of Home Minister’, Lok Sabha Debate, 18 December 2001. 156. Supreme Court confirmed Afzal Guru’s death sentence in 2004; V. Venkatesan, ‘Wait for Mercy’, Frontline, vol. 28, issue 18, 27 August– 9 September 2011. 157. Sawhney and Sood, Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished, p. 10. 158. Phadnis, Business Standard Political Profiles of Cabals and Kings, p. 112. 159. Sawhney and Sood, Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished, p. 73. 160. Habibullah, My Kashmir: Conflict and the Prospects for Enduring Peace, p. 108. 161. On a question about why the troops were mobilized, Mr Jaitley said: ‘[y]ou go to the street and feel the pulse of the people’; the author was present at ‘Mr Arun Jaitley’s Interaction with the Students of Jawaharlal Nehru University’, October 2002. 162. Praveen Swami, ‘Gen. Padmanabhan mulls over lessons of Operation Parakram’, The Hindu, 6 February 2004. 163. Ladwig III, An Overview and Assessment of the Indian Army’s Cold Start Strategy, pp. 3–4. 164. Cohen, The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation, pp. 207–9. 165. V.R. Raghavan, ‘Limited War and Nuclear Escalation in South Asia’, Nonproliferation Review 2001, Vol. 8, No. 3, Fall/Winter, p. 8. 166. Sawhney and Sood, Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished, p. 81. 167. Chari, Cheema and Cohen, Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia, p. 164. 168. Praveen Swami, ‘Gen. Padmanabhan mulls over lessons of Operation Parakram’, The Hindu, 6 February 2004.

Notes 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176.

177. 178. 179. 180.

315

Ibid. Ibid. ‘Pakistan does not want war’, The News, 30 December 2002. Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power, p. 220. Pervez Musharraf’s speech to the BBC, 12 January 2002. Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia, p. 136. Praveen Swami, ‘Gen. Padmanabhan Mulls over Lessons of Operation Parakram’, The Hindu, 6 February 2004. After terrorist hits on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salem, and on USS Cole, the US targeted specific militant training camps but did not go to war; Talbott, Engaging India; Coll, Ghost War. The figures are taken from the police records and do not include the terrorists; author’s collection. ‘Securing the Home Front’, India Today, 19 January 2009, p. 24. Anatol Lieven, ‘The Pressures on Pakistan’, Foreign Affairs, 2002, vol. 81, no. 1, Jan–Feb, pp. 106–18. ‘Gilani tells US can’t guarantee no repeat of 26/11 in India’, The Indian Express, 23 January 2010.

Chapter 2 1. David Mulford, Menon Presents Evidence Of Pakistan Involvement In Mumbai Attacks To Ambassadors. US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 5 January 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 2. This is because terror groups do not maintain minutes nor follow any constitution. Their claims are often contradictory and bigger than their actual acts. Police interrogation records are the most significant documents about their functioning. But police reports only talk about a particular event or the process which led to the event. Source: Author’s meeting with police and intelligence officials (Vidhi Kumar Virdi, IPS, Ramakant Gupta, IPS, P. Mishra, IPS, R. Lubaya, IPS and others), personal visit and discussion with the Station House Officer and constables who have either prepared chargesheets or been part of operations at Tilak Marg Police Station, Nizamuddin Police Station, Vasant Kunj Police Station, Vasant Vihar Police Station, Parliament Street Police Station, and Connaught Place Police Station, all in Delhi; attorneys (Senior Advocate K. K. Venugopal, Ad. Ujjwal Nikam, Ad. Ejaz Naqvi, Ad. Gopal Shankarnarayan and others), journalists (Josy Joseph, Saikat Datta, Anand Gopal [The Wall Street Journal], Mustafa Plumber, Dhananjay Mahapatra and Sailesh Gaikwad) and some terrorists in the jail of Kot Bhalwal Jail in Jammu, in Poonch

316

3.

4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

9.

Notes (former jihadi) of Kashmir, at Patiala House Court in Delhi (State v. Arif ) and the lawyer of Sabauddin Ahmad and Fahim Ansari in Mumbai. Stephen Tankel’s Storming the World Stage (published by Hachette India in 2011) exclusively deals with the LeT. The book tried to unravel many mysteries which surround the LeT. However, the author consulted anonymous sources on almost all important issues and cited nameless officials for clarifications. The use of anonymous sources in this book is horizontal. At times the author unnecessarily withheld names of researchers, who merely quoted innocuous or favourable statements about the LeT (as on p. 59). Contrary to this, Pakistani reporters (Ahmad Rashid, Amir Mir, Amir Rana and Syed Saleem Shahzad) and academics (Ayasha Jalal, Ayesha Siddiqa, Imtiaz Gul, Shuja Nawaj and Hussain Haqqani) have been writing extensively on similar subjects with authentic sources and far more daring and clarity about them. Due to this contradiction, although I have quoted Storming the World Stage in a few places, where I talk about the LeT’s activities, I have refrained from taking it as the most credible source to analyze the LeT. Pawan Kumar Bansal, ‘Called the attention of Minister of Home Affairs to the situation arising out of recent killings of members of minority community in Doda, Jammu & Kashmir and steps taken by the Government in this regard’, Lok Sabha Debates, 9 August 2001; J. S. Barad, ‘Regarding threat given to the life of the Deputy Prime Minister by Lashkar-e-Taiba’, Lok Sabha Debate, 6 March 2003; Manmohan Singh, ‘PM Inaugurates Chief Minister’s Conference On Internal Security’, New Delhi, 6 January 2009. Ninety per cent of terrorist organizations have a life span of less than one year and of those that make it to a year, more than half disappear within a decade: David Rapoport, ‘Terrorism’ in Hawkesworth, Mary and Kogan, Maurice, eds, Routledge Encyclopedia of Government and Politics, Vol. 2, London: Routledge 1992, p. 1067; Steven Hutchinson, and Pat O’Malley, How Terrorist Groups Decline, Trends in Terrorism Series, Vol. 1, Ottawa: Carleton University, 2007. C. Christine Fair, ‘Implications of the November 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Attack Upon Several Targets in the Indian Mega-City of Mumbai’. House Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection, 11 March 2009. For discussion on the ISI’s support to terrorist organization see Rashid, Descent into Chaos. Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country, p. 154; C. Christine Fair, ‘Lashkare-Taiba beyond Bin Laden: Enduring Challenges for the Region and the International Community’, Testimony prepared for the U.S. Senate, Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Other Extremist Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 24 May 2011. Yousuf and Adkin, Afghanistan the Bear Trap, p. 105.

Notes

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10. Coll, Ghost War, p. 79. 11. Praveen Swami, ‘Ties that bind: Lashkar and Global Jihad’, The Hindu, 12 December 2009. 12. Interpol records trace his origin to Barahkoh, Post Office, Tehsil and District Islamabad, Pakistan and Chak No. 18/IL, Rinala Khurd, Tehsil Rinala Khurd, District Okara, Pakistan. His date of birth is 30 December 1960; INTERPOL General Secretariat. 13. Taiba Bulletin. ‘Subject: Eleven Years of Lashker-e-Taiba’, 22 April 2001. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/muslimworldnews, accessed in 2008, now defunct. 14. Hillary Clinton, Text of Non-Paper. US Secret Cable from Washington DC, Department of State, 10 August 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 15. The year of his joining and resignation is calculated from information available from various sources including from Saeed’s profile. http:// www.pakistanileaders.com.pk/profile/Hafiz_Muhammad_Saeed (accessed 2 January 2011); Amir Mir, ‘Hafiz Mohammed Saeed: LeT’ in Harinder Baweja, ed., Most Wanted, New Delhi: Roli Books, 2002, p. 59. 16. The statement was issued by the LeT’s Taiba Bulletin. Taiba Bulletin is an official publication of the LeT, from PO Box 259, Flat no. 9, 1st floor, Trade Centre, 180 Multan Road, Lahore, Pakistan. 17. As described on LeT websites http://www.lashkertaiba.net, http://www. markazdawa.com and http://www.dawacenter.com. I have retrieved the materials from the website, which is now defunct; Taiba Bulletin, ‘Subject: Eleven Years of Lashker-e-Taiba’, 22 April 2001; also see Sikand, ‘Islamist Militancy in Kashmir: The Case of the Lashkar-e-Taiba’ in Aparna Rao, Bollig and Bock, eds, The Practice of War: Production, Reproduction and Communication of Armed Violence, pp. 218–29. 18. Saeed was born in 1950 and was 36 years old in 1986. Thirty-six members of his family were allegedly killed during the partition of India and Pakistan and he was the only one from his family to survive; Mir, ‘Hafiz Mohammed Saeed: LeT’, p. 59. 19. This is a dubious claim of the LeT website made in 1999. Claims like this question the veracity of the other claims of the website; Taiba Bulletin. Undated. ‘Jihad: The Foreign Policy of the Islamic State’, http://www. dawacenter.com/magazines/voiceofislam/sept99/jihad.html, (accessed 5 January 2011), p. 2. 20. Yousuf and Adkin, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap, p. 109. 21. The ISI provided guns and ammunition to the seven parties housed in Peshawar and recognized by the ISI; Ibid., pp. 101, 104. 22. Coll, Ghost War, p. 66. 23. Yousuf and Adkin, Afghanistan the Bear Trap, p. 90; Coll, Ghost War, pp. 83–84. 24. Taiba Bulletin, ‘Subject: Eleven Years of Lashker-e-Taiba’, 22 April 2001.

318

Notes

25. Pakistani authors believe the MDI was funded and supported by Azzam; Hassan Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, p. 210; Saeed Shafqat, ‘From official Islam to Islamism: The Rise of Dawat-ul-Irshad and LeT’, in Christopher Jaffrelot, ed., Pakistan: Nationalism without Nation? New Delhi: Manohar Publishers 2002, p. 141. 26. Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, p. 210. 27. Hussain, Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam, p. 54. 28. Blank, ‘Kashmir: All Tactics, No Strategy’ in Sumit Ganguly, ed., Kashmir Question, p. 191. 29. Ashley J. Tellis, Bad Company — Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan, Testimony, United States House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, 11 March 2010. 30. District Court of Virginia. USA v. Randall Todd Royer, Criminal No. 03, June 2003, pp. 3–4. 31. The South Asia Terrorism Portal maintains a database about the attacks undertaken by the LeT since 1996; Lashkar-e-Taiba, from http://www. satp.org (accessed 23 January 2011). 32. LeT spokesman Abu Osama told Reuters on the telephone: ‘This is our first operation against an Indian military installation inside India’, CNN, 23 December 2000. 33. L. K. Advani, Statement in the Lok Sabha by Union Home Minister L. K. Advani on the December 13 Terrorist Attack on Parliament House, 18 December 2001. 34. Terrorist organizations are normally banned by their home country and hence their functioning is mostly clandestine. Pakistan’s policy is to house militants and allow groups to build a network of madrassas and mosques, which in turn act as their recruitment ground; Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country, pp. 148–150; Anne Patterson, Ambassador’s Condolence Call On Asif Zardari, US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 28 January 2008. Source: Wikileaks. 35. Amir Mir, ‘Militant Philanthropy’, Newsline, 15 November 2005. 36. Amir Rana, A to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan. Lahore: Marshal 2006, pp. 57–58, 60. 37. India banned the LeT in 2000, which was followed by its ban by Britain on 30 March 2001 and its inclusion as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on 26 December 2001 by the US. The military regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf banned the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan on 12 January 2002. The group was proscribed by the United Nations in May 2005. 38. Hillary Clinton, Text of Non-Paper. US Secret Cable from Washington DC, Department of State, 10 August 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 39. Ibid.

Notes

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40. Dean Nelson, ‘£300m earthquake aid misused by Zardari’, The Daily Telegraph, 13 August 2010. 41. Md. Sadiq, ‘Valley of Death’, Jammu and Kashmir Insight, 31 October 2005. 42. Coll, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba’, The New Yorker, 1 December 2008. 43. Victor Comras, ‘Terrorism Tainted Lashkar-e-Taiba Continues As A Major Player in Kashmir Earthquake Relief Effort’, 22 November 2005, http://www.counterterrorismblog.com (accessed 23 January 2011). 44. Amir Mir, ‘Militant Philanthropy’, Newsline, 15 November 2005. 45. Ibid. 46. ‘The Next Al-Qaeda?’Newsweek, 26 February 2010. 47. Umer Farooq, ‘The Two Faces of Lashkar-e-Taiba’, Asharq Alawsat, Arabic International Daily, English edition, 6 December 2008. 48. ‘Profile: Lashkar-e-Taiba’, BBC, 3 May 2010. 49. Saroj Kumar Rath, ‘New Terror Architecture in South Asia’, India Quarterly 2011, vol. 66, no. 4, p. 366. 50. Hillary Clinton, Terrorist Finance: Action Request for Senior Level Engagement on Terrorism Finance. US Secret Cable from Washington DC, (Ref: US, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Kuwait and Islamabad), 30 December 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 51. Adam B. Ellick, and Pir Zubair Shah, ‘Hard-Line Islam Fills Void in Flooded Pakistan’, The New York Times, 6 August 2010. 52. Saeed Shah, ‘Pakistan floods’, Christian Science Monitor, 4 August 2010. 53. Adam B. Ellick and Pir Zubair Shah, ‘Hard-Line Islam Fills Void in Flooded Pakistan’, The New York Times, 6 August 2010. 54. Saeed Shah, ‘Pakistan floods: Islamic fundamentalists fill state aid void’, The Guardian, 3 August 2010. 55. Pervez Musharraf, ‘Interview with NDTV’, London, 9 October 2010. 56. Department of State, Secretary of State’s Terrorist Designation of Falahi-Insaniat Foundation. Office of the Spokesman, Washington DC, 24 November 2010. 57. Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, p. 212. 58. The Indian government’s report is based on the interrogation of LeT terrorist Ajmal Kasab and the profile of LeT terrorists killed in the Mumbai attacks; Mumbai Police, 2009. Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case, 25 February 2009, Mumbai, File No. 4 (A), pp. 7–12. 59. As per information available at various sources on Saeed’s profile, n.d. from http://www.pakistanileaders.com.pk/profile/Hafiz_Muhammad_ Saeed (accessed 2 January 2011); Amir, ‘Hafiz Mohammed Saeed: LeT’, p. 59. 60. The assertion is based on the fact that Hafiz Saeed and Zafar Iqbal were professors of Islamic Studies at the University of Engineering and

320

61. 62. 63.

64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

Notes Technology, Lahore; Amir Mir, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba in the Dock’, Asia Times Online, 14 September 2011. Anne Patterson, Scene Setter for Special Envoy Holbrooke. US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 4 February 2009. Source: Wikileaks. Zahab, ‘I Shall be Waiting for You at the Door of Paradise’, in Rao et al., The Practice of War, p. 139. The website for FIF was functional at the time of writing. The LeT publishes an Urdu monthly journal, Al-Dawa and an Urdu weekly, Gazwa. It also publishes Voice of Islam, an English monthly, and Al-Rabat — a monthly in Arabic, Mujala-e-Tulba — an Urdu monthly for students and Jehad Times — an Urdu weekly. Despite being banned, publication continues. The LeT-led Pakistani Salafist movement has traditionally stayed apolitical; Kaushik Kapisthalam, ‘Pakistan Faces its Jihadi Demons in Iraq’, Asia Times Online, 14 July 2004. Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, p. 214. District Court of Virginia. USA v. Randall Todd Royer, Criminal No. 03, June 2003, pp. 2–3. Carlotta Gall, ‘Pakistani Military Still Cultivates Militant Groups, a Former Fighter Says’, The New York Times, 3 July 2011. Praveen Swami, ‘Ties that Bind: Lashkar and Global Jihad’, The Hindu, 12 December 2009. Ibid. Radio 4, BBC, 8 September 2008. ‘UK Cleric Wins Deportation Battle’, BBC, 10 September 1999. Ministry of Home Affairs, Profile of Sajid Majid, Government of India 2009, one-page data, author’s collection. Sebastian Rotella, ‘On the trail of Pakistani terror group’s elusive mastermind behind the Mumbai siege’, Pro Publica, 14 November 2010. Hillary Clinton, Text of Non-Paper. US Secret Cable from Washington DC, Department of State, 10 August 2009. Source: Wikileaks. Sebastian Rotella, ‘Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story’, Pro Publica, 26 January 2011, p. 2. District Court of Virginia. 2003. USA v. Randall Todd Royer, Criminal No. 03, June, p. 10. Rotella, Sebastian. 2011. ‘Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story’, Pro Publica, 26 January, p. 3. Jean-Louis Bruguiere, ‘Interrogation: Willy Brigitte’, ABC Four Corners, 9 February 2004. New South Wales Supreme Court, Regina v. Lodhi. No. 006, NSWSC 199 FLR 364, 2006, p. 18. Ibid. Quoted in Kapisthalam, Kaushik, ‘Pakistan Faces its Jihadi Demons in Iraq’, Asia Times Online, 14 July 2004.

Notes

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82. ‘LeT becoming global threat’, Daily Times, 25 July, 2010. 83. Mark Mazetti, ‘A Shooting in Pakistan Reveals Fraying Alliance’, The New York Times, 12 March 2011. 84. Jaffrelot, Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation?; Tankel, Storming the World Stage; Behera, Demystifying Kashmir; Riedel, Deadly Embrace; Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad; Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism; Rao et al, The Practice of War; and Burke, Al-Qaeda, are a few academic works which contradict each other on the year of commission of the MDI and the LeT. 85. Hillary Clinton, UN 1267 (Al-Qaida/Taliban) Sanctions: USG Opposition To Focal Point De-Listing Request For JuD And Hafiz Saeed, US Secret Cable from Washington, 10 August 2009. Source: Wikileaks; District Court of Virginia, USA v. Randall Todd Royer, Criminal No. 03, June 2003, p. 1. 86. ‘31 organizations banned from collecting hides’, Pakistan Today, November 2011. 87. Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case. 25 February 2009, Mumbai. 88. Coll, Ghost War; Rashid, Taliban; Rashid, Descent into Chaos; Yousuf and Adkin, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap; and Bhutto, Reconciliation, are a few qualified works, which dissect the ISI’s relations with terrorist groups. 89. Carlotta Gall, ‘Pakistani Military Still Cultivates Militant Groups, a Former Fighter Says’, The New York Times, 3 July 2011. 90. As quoted in David Mulford, Menon Tough on Pakistan, Bullish on Bilateral Relationship in Discussion with Assistant Secretary Boucher. US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 9 January 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 91. The ISI’s support to JKLF is documented extensively by Swami, India Pakistan and the Secret Jihad. 92. Burke, Al-Qaeda, p. 99; Swami, India Pakistan and the Secret Jihad, pp. 144–45; Alexander Evans, ‘Talibanizing Kashmir?’ World Today, December 2001. 93. Quoted in Dhar, ISI-CIA-Al-Qaeda Nexus, p. 65. 94. Bhutto, Daughter of the East, p. 418. 95. Levy and Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, pp. 239–43. 96. Haqqani, Pakistan’s End Game, p. 47. 97. Ashley J. Tellis, ‘Bad Company — Lashkar-e-Taiba and The Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan’, Testimony, United States House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, 11 March 2010. 98. L. K. Advani, Statement on Bomb Blasts in Delhi. XII Lok Sabha Debates, Session II, 27 July 1998; L. K. Advani, Statement of Deputy Prime Minister on Attack on Raghunath Temple Jammu, Lok Sabha, 24 November 2002.

322

Notes

99. Anne Patterson, Scene Setter for General Kayani’s Visit to Washington. US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 19 February 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 100. Sebastian Rotella, ‘On the trail of Pakistani terror group’s elusive mastermind behind the Mumbai siege’, Pro Publica, 14 November 2010. 101. Delhi Police, ‘Police Interrogation Report of Abu Anas’, author’s collection, August 2006. 102. Mark Mazzetti and Jane Perlez, ‘CIA and Pakistan Work Together, Warily’, The New York Times, 24 February 2010. 103. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, p. 89. 104. Marvin G. Weinbaum, Bad Company: Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, 11 March 2010. 105. Woodward, Obama’s War, p. 46. 106. Weinbaum, n. 105. 107. In Sunni belief, the term ‘imam’ is used for the founding scholars of the four Sunni madhhabs, or schools of religious jurisprudence (fiqh); Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, p. 29. 108. Momem, An Introduction to Shi’i Islam, pp. 175–6. 109. Moosa, Ghazali and The Poetics of Imagination, p. 312. 110. Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, p. 2. 111 Jalal, Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia, p. 275. 112. For discussion, see Rath, ‘Pakistan’s Double Game: Supporting and Opposing Terrorism’, pp. 92–105. 113. Shahzad, Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban, pp. 92–102. 114. James Astill and Brian Whitaker, ‘Zawahiri Tape Taunts Pakistanis’, The Guardian, 26 March 2004. 115. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, pp. 230–31. 116. Isambard Wilkinson, ‘Al-Qaeda targets Musharraf after bloody seize’, The Telegraph, 12 July 2007. 117. ‘Musharraf vows war on militants’, BBC News, 12 July 2007. 118. Bill Roggio, ‘Suicide Bombing in Pakistan’s Rawalpindi kills 25’, Long War Journal, 4 September 2007. 119. Author’s email correspondence with Abhishek Sharan of the Hindustan Times, 2 November 2010. 120. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 10 June 2010, p. 90. 121. Police Interrogation of Ajmal Kasab, Mumbai Police, Documents and Audio-Visual Recording, author’s collection, 27 November 2008. 122. Charlie Savage, ‘US Government Takes Measures to Step Up Legal Pressure on Pakistani Taliban’, The New York Times, 2 September 2010. 123. Carlotta Gall, ‘Pakistan and Afghan Taliban Close Ranks’, The New York Times, 26 March 2009.

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124. Ryan Croker, Terror Finance, US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 27 November 2006, http://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassycables-documents/87074 (accessed 3 December 2010). 125. Anne Patterson, Zardari Comments on India/Nawaz Sharif. US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 5 January 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 126. Haqqani, Ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups, p. 25. 127. The assertion that Saeed met Abdullah Azzam to start the MDI has been extensively quoted by various authors; Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, p. 211; Zahab, ‘I shall be waiting for you at the door of paradise’, in Rao et al., The Practice of War, p. 135. 128. The Washington-based website globalsecurity.org claimed that a few LeT terrorists were killed; Lashkar-e-Taiba, Global Security, http:// www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/lakshar.htm (accessed 7 February 2012); Strobe Talbott informed that few ISI officials died in this attack; Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb — A Memoir, p. 116. 129. Lashkar-e-Taiba, Global Security, http://www.globalsecurity.org/ military/world/para/lakshar.htm (accessed 7 February 2012). 130. The LeT website claimed that its volunteers reached Afghanistan before the US attack on Afghanistan began on 7 October 2001, http://www. markazdawa.org/English/newsand media/jtimes/200220_4/014.htm, link no longer available (accessed 2 February 2012); also quoted in Sikand, Islamist Militancy in Kashmir: The Case of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, in Rao et al., The Practice of War, p. 232. 131. John Byrns, ‘A Nation Challenged: the Fugitives, in Pakistan’s Interior, A Troubling Victory in Hunt for al-Qaeda’, The New York Times, 14 April 2002. 132. Department of Defense, Memorandum for Commander, United States Southern Command, Miami. US Secret Cable from Washington DC 2010. Source: Wikileaks. 133. Mark H. Buzby, US Navy Commanding, ‘Recommendation for Continued Detention’, US Secret Cable, Department of Defense, Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba 2010. Source: Wikileaks. 134. Northern District Court of Illinois. USA v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Eastern Division, CR 830, No. 09, 2009, p. 11. 135. Daniel Benjamin, The Obama Administration’s Counterterrorism Policy at One Year, CATO Institute, 13 January 2010. 136. As quoted in Rashid, Taliban, p. 129. 137. Manzoor Qadir, ‘PDC urges government to quit US war on terrorism’, Daily Times, 23 January 2012; Cyril Almeida, ‘Rally in Lahore sends alarms bells ringing’, Dawn, 21 December 2011; Bhaskar Roy, ‘Moving Forward With Pakistan’, South Asian Analysis Group, 22 June 2010.

324

Notes

138. Press Trust of India, ‘Mumbai Attacks: Ex-ISI Chief Gul terms Post report nonsense’, The Times of India, 7 December 2008. 139. ‘Pakistan retakes naval base after militant attacks’, Dawn, 23 May 2011. 140. Jalal, ‘The Past as Present’ in Lodhi, ed., Pakistan: Beyond the Crisis State, p. 9. 141. Syed Irfan and Faizullah Jan, ‘Prisoners of a Jihadi Past’, Dawn, 25 February 2009. 142. In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on 14 June 2011, when Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, demanded to know how long the US would support Pakistan, or as he put it, ‘governments that lie to us,’ Robert Gates, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, had an unvarnished answer: ‘Well, first of all, I would say based on 27 years in the CIA and four-and-a-half years in this job, most governments lie to each other. That’s the way business gets done.’ Elisabeth Bumiller, ‘Exit Near, Gates Speaks Bluntly of US Allies’, The New York Times, 15 June 2011. 143. Arnaud de Borchgrave, ‘Paranoidistan’, The Washington Times, 2 February 2010. 144. Sadanand Dhume, ‘Why Pakistan Produces Jihadists’, The Wall Street Journal, 3 May 2010. 145. Shuja Nawaz, ‘The Battle for Pakistan’, The Wall Street Journal, 19 October 2009; Jalal, The Past as Present, p. 8. 146. In 2011, there was a series of meetings between senior officers of India and Pakistan belonging to the defence and home ministries on the issue of terrorism. Josy Joseph, who covers security issues for the Times of India, told the author that there is a growing realization amongst senior Pakistani officers that terrorism is actually bleeding Pakistan. Author’s interview with Josy Joseph, 20 May 2011. 147. The Congressional Research Service of the US divides the terrorist groups under five categories. However, I believe there is another group which is left out; K. Alan Kronstadt, ‘Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary’, CRS report, Washington DC, 16 May 2011. 148. ‘Taliban Suicide-bomb trainer tutored NYK bombing suspect, Hindustan Times, 6 May 2010. 149. Jon Boone and Saeed Shah, ‘At least 55 dead in Kabul suicide attack on Shia pilgrims’, The Guardian, 6 December 2011. 150. List of Organisations Declared As Terrorist Organisations Under The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India 1967. 151. Ahmad Rashid, ‘Pakistan on the Brink’, Global Asia, Vol. 4, No. 2, Summer 2009, p. 63. 152. ‘Pakistan: Countering Militancy in FATA’, International Crisis Group, 21 October 2009, pp. 6–7.

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153. Benazir Bhutto accused the military of being the only one in the world which made peace agreement with the militants; Bhutto, Reconciliation, p. 215. 154. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 230. 155. The 128-page list carried only one name from the LeT; Federal Investigation Agency Most Wanted Terrorist, Special Investigation Group, Islamabad 2009, p. 16. 156. India informed the US ambassador that ‘Pakistan claimed to ban JamatudDawa (JuD), but the organization continues to update its web site [sic]’; David Mulford, Menon Presents Evidence of Pakistan Involvement In Mumbai Attacks To Ambassadors. US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 5 January 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 157. Hina Rabbani Khar, ‘Pakistan’s Foreign Minister’s Address to the UN General Assembly on behalf of Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani’, United Nations General Assembly, New York, 28 September 2011. 158. ‘Pakistan is not like Iraq or Afghanistan, Kayani tells Washington’, The Hindu, 19 October 2011. 159. Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise, pp. 49–50. 160. Senior officials of the ISI regularly meet leaders of terrorist organizations to discuss strategies, as on 4 February 2010, when former ISI chief Hamid Gul attended a meeting of the LeT in Muzaffarabad; Ben Farmer, ‘Pakistan Terrorist Groups Hold Kashmir Rally’, The Telegraph, 5 February 2010.

Chapter 3 1. As said earlier, the LeT was started simultaneously with the MDI in 1986 in Afghanistan; District Court of Virginia, USA v. Randall Todd Royer, Criminal No. 03, June 2003, pp. 3–4. 2. Both Saeed and Zaki-ur Rehman are the founding members of the LeT; Saeed is free but Zaki-ur Rehman is presently in jail; Anti-Terrorist Court, FIA v. Zaki-ur Rehman and others, Court No. III, Rawalpindi 2010. 3. The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, records about their profile inform that all of them belong to the age group of 35–37 years; Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, one-page data about each terrorist, author’s collection. 4. Ministry of Home Affairs. National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, p. 18. 5. Confession of Kasab, p. 12. 6. Major Iqbal is 35 years old, Major Hashim Syed is 45 years old, Captain Khurram and Major Haroon are in their 40s; Ministry of Home Affairs,

326

7.

8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

Notes Government of India, one page data about each terrorist, author’s collection; Shazad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, pp. 92–96. ‘Tis strange — but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction; if it could be told’. The proverb is taken from Lord Byron’s satirical poem ‘Don Juan, 1823’, ed., Ernest Hartley Coleridge, London: John Murrey 1903, Canto XIV, XCIX. Ministry of Home Affairs. National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 10 June 2010, p. 83. Ibid., p. 85. The Mumbai Attach Chargesheet does not provide the background story of the attack, which is very much part of every US indictment on terrorism, including the 9/11 indictment. The chargesheet was filed on 25 February 2009 lacking the background information of the attack; Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case, 25 February 2009, Mumbai. The trial court did not take cognizance of the events of 2009. Justice M. L. Tahilyani of the trial court refused to take notice of the arrest of Headley. For the purpose of this study, the author has collated all the events connected with the Mumbai attack. Eric Schmitt, ‘Obama issues order for more troops in Afghanistan’, The New York Times, 30 November 2009. The CIA received intelligence that al-Qaeda remains the most serious security threat to America and to US interests; Leon E. Panetta, ‘Director’s Remarks at the Pacific Council on International Policy’, Central Intelligence Agency, 18 May 2009. Woodward, Obama’s War, p. 122. Eastern District Court of New York, USA v. Nazibullah Zazi, 2009, 09 CR 663. Department of Justice, ‘Najibullah Zazi Pleads Guilty’, Office of Public Affairs, US Government, 22 February 2010. Duncan Gardham, ‘British links to Mumbai-style machine gun plot’, The Telegraph, 5 January 2011. Ginger Thompson, ‘Terror Trial Witness Ties Pakistan to 2008 Attacks’, The New York Times, 23 May 2011. Northern District Court of Illinois, USA v. David Coleman Headley. Case Number 09 CR 830, Eastern Division 2009, p. 36. After the Mumbai attacks, the FBI never informed India about Headley. That the DEA and FBI knew about Headley’s possible role in the indictment is evident; Press Trust of India, ‘Double Agent Headley Recced NDA in Pune’, 24 February 2010. Northern District Court of Illinois, USA v. Ilyas Kashmiri, Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, David Coleman Headley, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, No. 09 CR 830, US District Court, Eastern Division, 2009.

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22. Northern District Court of Illinois, USA v. David Coleman Headley, Case Number 09 CR 830, Eastern Division 2009, p. 3. 23. Individual A’s identity is known to the FBI, which informed the Northern District Court of Illinois that Member A is an LeT member with substantial influence and responsibility within the LeT; ‘United States of America v. David C. Headley’, 2009, p. 9. 24. Arnab Goswami, ‘Debate on Headley’, Times Now, 20 May 2011. 25. Counter-terrorism officials estimate that Zazi is one of 100 to 150 Westerners who had gone to the border region for terror training in 2008; ‘Terror training camps harder to target’, Daily Times, 10 November 2009. 26. This assertion is based on the background that US intelligence agencies were aware of Headley’s reconnaissance in India and the impending attack; Northern District Court of Illinois, USA v. Ilyas Kashmiri, Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, David Coleman Headley, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, No. 09 CR 830, US District Court, Eastern Division, 2009. 27. Woodward, Obama’s War, p. 123. 28. ‘Norway terror suspects plotted cartoon attacks’, BBC, 28 September 2010. 29. The US has a zero tolerance terror policy when it affects its homeland. However, its cooperation with India on the Headley affair is contradictory to this policy. India’s foreign minister and prime minister at the time requested their US counterparts for access to Headley. Contrary to this, the US got access to Kasab without any such request; George Bush, Text of President’s Speech, White House, 20 September 2001; Department of Justice, USA Patriot Act of 2001, US Government 2001; Narayan Lakshman, ‘Krishna Presses Clinton for Access to Headley’, The Hindu, 3 June 2010; Press Trust of India, ‘Manmohan raises Headley issue with Obama’, 12 April 2010. 30. The 49 wanted terrorists including Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed are in Pakistan; Ministry of Home Affairs, ‘Dossier on India’s Most Wanted’, Government of India, New Delhi, 28 March 2011. 31. Ginger Thompson, Eric Schmitt and Souad Mekhennet, ‘DEA Deployed Mumbai Plotter Despite Warning’, The New York Times, 7 November 2010. 32. Ginger Thompson, ‘Plotter of Mumbai Attacks Says he Worked for the DEA’, The New York Times, 26 May 2011. 33. Andrew Wilkie, Axis of Deceit: The story of the intelligence officer who risked all to tell the truth about WMD and Iraq. Melbourne: Black Inc, 2004, p. 51. 34. Dean Nelson, ‘Mumbai suspect is US double agent, India claims’, The Telegraph, 16 December 2009. 35. David Coleman Headley, Plea Agreement in the United States of America v. David Coleman Headley a/k/a Daood Gilani, United States District

328

36. 37. 38.

39.

40. 41.

42.

43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

Notes Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, No. 09 CR 830-3, 2009, pp. 3–4. Thompson, Schmitt, and Mekhennet, ‘DEA Deployed Mumbai Plotter Despite Warning’. Ibid. Headley and Rana’s phone conversations were taped and recorded by FBI; Northern District Court of Illinois. USA v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Eastern Division, CR 830, No. 09, 2009, p. 11. David Coleman Headley, Plea Agreement in the United States of America v. David Coleman Headley a/k/a Daood Gilani, United States District Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, No. 09 CR 830-3, 2009, p. 3. Ibid., pp. 3–4. There are scores of media reports across the world about the possibility of Headley’s being a double agent. An objective analysis of court materials also testify to this fear; David Coleman Headley, Plea Agreement in the United States of America v. David Coleman Headley a/k/a Daood Gilani, United States District Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, No. 09 CR 830-3, 2009; Jeremy Kahn, ‘Headley Pleads Guilty Fueling Double Agent Speculation’, 22 March 2010, www.thefastertimes. com (accessed 20 February 2011). Internal reviews, congressional committee reports and media reports in the US are full of Pakistan’s dubious role in the Afghan war. Similarly, Pakistani intelligence and the army has always been suspicious of the US action; Mark Mazzetti, ‘A shooting in Pakistan reveals fraying alliance’, The New York Times, 12 March 2011; ‘Pakistan mortagaged itself to US’, The News, 17 June 2011. When President Clinton visited India in 2000, the LeT massacred 35 Sikhs at a village called Chittisinghpura. The group was involved in the Kashmir insurgency since a long time but the US was silent till December 2001. The reason cited by the US Department of Justice for the ban of the LeT in 2001 already existed for many years. FBI, Terrorism 2002–2005, US Department of Justice, 2005. Sebastian Rotella, ‘Newly Discovered Warnings about Headley Reveal a Troubling Timeline in Mumbai Case’, 5 November 2010, Pro Publica. Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt and Ginger Thompson, ‘U.S. Had Warnings on Plotter of Mumbai Attack’, The New York Times, 16 October 2010. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, pp. 97–98. Woodward, Obama’s War, p. 124. Elisabeth Bumiller, ‘Exit near; Gates speaks bluntly of US allies’, The New York Times, 15 June 2011. India has an extradition treaty with the US; The President of the United States, ‘Extraordinary Treaty with India’, Senate, 105th Congress, 1st Session 1997, Treaty Doc. 105-30.

Notes

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50. Rath, ‘New Terror Architecture in South Asia: 26/11 Mumbai Attacks Inquiry’, p. 359. 51. 135 countries including India pledged their support to the US after the 9/11 attacks. 46 countries including the US have participated in the war in Afghanistan. 52. B. Raman, ‘Why Headley’s interrogation is a charade’, 31 May 2010, http://news.rediff.com/column/2010/may/31/why-headleysinterrogation-is-a-charade.htm (accessed 4 December 2010). 53. After arrests in 1987 and 1998, he cooperated with the US drug agency in exchange for lighter sentences; Ginger Thompson, Eric Schmitt, and Souad Mekhennet, ‘D.E.A. Deployed Mumbai Plotter Despite Warning’, The New York Times, 7 November 2010. 54. David Coleman Headley, Plea Agreement in the United States of America v. David Coleman Headley a/k/a Daood Gilani. United States District Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, No. 09 CR 830-3, 2009, p. 26. 55. Ibid., p. 26. 56. Department of State ‘US-India Strategic Dialogue Joint Statement’, Office of the Spokesman, Washington DC, 3 June 2010. 57. Ministry of Home Affairs National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, pp. 1–10. 58. The CrPC empowers a police officer to record the statement of a person who is acquainted with the facts and circumstances of the case being investigated by him (Section 161). This, however, is not admissible in a court of law. The rationale behind this is that the police sometimes coerce witnesses into making statements, and such statements should not be seen as evidence. Hence, the witness is required to appear before the court. The option available to a police officer is to produce the witness before a magistrate and record the statement as per under Section 164. Such statements may be recorded under oath and are admissible as evidence; Supreme Court of India, State of Uttar Pradesh v. Singhara Singh and Ors. AIR 1964 SCR 485, 1964. 59. Rotella, Newly Discovered Warnings about Headley Reveal a Troubling Timeline in Mumbai Case, n. 44. 60. Vishwa Mohan, ‘Did US sit on info Headley gave on 26/11?’, The Times of India, 10 November 2010. 61. The US never accepts any other court than its own. After the International Court of Justice ruled that the US’s covert war against Nicaragua was in violation of international law, the US withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986. The United States accepts the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction only on a case-by-case basis. 62. The President of the United States, ‘Extraordinary Treaty with India’, Senate, 105th Congress, 1st Session, Treaty Doc, 1997, 105–30, p. 3. 63. ‘Indira Gandhi . . . had expressed shock and surprise at the total lack of resistance amongst the people to the emergency of India. She particularly

330

64. 65. 66.

67. 68. 69.

70. 71.

72. 73.

74. 75. 76. 77.

Notes mentioned . . . that she was more amazed at the lack of reaction amongst the intelligentsia’; Nariman, Before Memory Fades, p. 177. David H. Petraeus, ‘US Senate, Committee on Armed Services’, Washington DC, 29 June 2010. Syed Saleem Shahzad, ‘Pakistan-India: Same game, new rules’, Asia Times, 27 November 2003. Ali K. Chisti, ‘Quetta Shura is now Karachi Shura’, Daily Times, 20 January 2011; Syed Saleem Shahzad, ‘Ceasefire Will Not Hold, with Same Game, New Rules’, South Asia Tribune, 30 November–6 December 2003. Syed Saleem Shahzad, ‘Ceasefire Will Not Hold, with Same Game, New Rules’, South Asia Tribune, Issue 69, 30 November–6 December 2003. Shashi Shekhar, ‘The Karachi Project’, The Pioneer, 5 January 2010. Dennis Blair, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 2 February 2010, p. 20, http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20100202_testimony.pdf (accessed 2 March 2011). Bharti Jain, ‘IM suspect Pune could be part of Karachi project’, Economic Times, 16 February 2010. After 2003, Gen. Musharraf liberated the 2,000 odd militants arrested after his 12 January 2002 speech. After the Lal Masjid operation of 2007, Musharraf was almost cornered by the terrorists; Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 225; Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Terrorism. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, p. 25. Headley informed his interrogators during various sessions that Major Hashim had devised the ‘Karachi Project’ when he was in the army. During his army career he was deputed to the LeT as a trainer and after some time he developed differences with the LeT and moved to Ilyas Kashmiri; Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, pp. 15, 24, 53, 96–97. Northern District Court of Illinois USA v. Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed. CR 830, No. 09, Eastern Division, October 2009, p. 7. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, p. 53. Ali K. Chisti, ‘Quetta Shura is now Karachi Shura’, Daily Times, 20 January 2011. Hamid Mir, ‘How an ex-Army commando became a terrorist’, The News, 20 September 2009. My extensive research on Ilyas Kashmiri and interviews with military officers in Jammu and Kashmir (XIV Corps) proved the fact that Kashmiri was never with the Pakistan army. He was a militant with very close relations with the army during his early days with HuJI.

Notes

331

78. Email interview with Anand Gopal of The Wall Street Journal, Kabul Correspondent, 24 September 2011. 79. Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 26. 80. Ibid., pp. 90–91. 81. This understanding is testified by the profile of Major Hashim, his participation with the ISI, the LeT, HuJI, al-Qaeda and Jund-ul Fida; Northern District Court of Illinois, USA v. Ilyas Kashmiri, Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, David Coleman Headley, Tahawwur Hussain Rana. No. 09 CR 830, US District Court, Eastern Division 2009; Northern District Court of Illinois. USA v. Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed. CR 830, No 09, Eastern Division, October 2009, p. 7; Shahzad, Inside AlQaeda and the Taliban, pp. 80–90; Ministry of Home Affairs. National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010. 82. David Headley was explicit in his explanation to the NIA; Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, pp. 26–29. 83. Dennis Blair, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington DC, 3 February 2010, p. 19. 84. US Senate, US Select Committee on Intelligence, 111th Congress, Washington DC, 2 February 2010, p. 37; Sandeep Unnithan, ‘The Karachi Project’, India Today, 18 February 2010. 85. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010. 86. Then Home Secretary of India Mr G. K. Pillai quoted in Sandeep Unnithan, ‘The Karachi Project’. 87. Interview of Syed Saleem Shahzad with Major Haroon, who was an SSG officer in the Pakistan army before his deputation to the LeT. Major Haroon later joined hands with al-Qaeda; as quoted in Shahzad, Inside the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, pp. 101–102. 88. Vishwa Mohan, ‘ISI even has a “Nepal set-up”: Headley’, The Times of India, 27 October 2010. 89. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010. 90. Headley was let off thrice by the US law enforcement agencies and around four times warnings against him were ignored; Ginger Thompson, Eric Schmitt, and Souad Mekhennet, ‘D.E.A. Deployed Mumbai Plotter Despite Warning’, The New York Times, 7 November 2010. 91. Sebastian Rotella, ‘Scout in Mumbai attacks was DEA informant while in terror camp, authorities say’, Pro Publica, 17 October 2010. 92. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 18.

332

Notes

93. Ibid., p. 49. 94. Ibid., p. 49. 95. David Coleman Headley, Plea Agreement in the United States of America v. David Coleman Headley a/k/a Daood Gilani, United States District Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, No. 09 CR 830-3, 2009, pp. 3–4. 96. Ginger Thompson, ‘Terror Trial Witness Ties Pakistan to 2008 Attacks’, The New York Times, 23 May 2011. 97. This assertion is based on the police interrogation report of numerous LeT terrorists in Delhi and in Jammu and Kashmir; author’s collection. The US officials ‘believe there are LeT sleeper and other cells in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as many law enforcement leads which need to be pursued’; Anne Patterson, Preserving Information Sharing. US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 3 January 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 98. Headley was categorical about his description of Major Ali; Ministry of Home Affairs National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, p. 36. 99. The porous border around Miranshah in FATA is a gateway to Afghanistan and vice-versa. There is no requirement for a visa where people cross the border frequently; Pranab Dhal Samanta, ‘ISI cell in NWFP targeting Indians in Kabul’, The Indian Express, 16 May 2010. 100. One-page report on the profile of Sajid Majid, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, 2009. 101. The Headley reconnaissance report submitted to two groups was part of the two ‘Karachi Projects’ of the ISI and the LeT. 102. David Mulford, Mumbai Attacks Update: Diplomats in Delhi Deliver United Messages, US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 2 December 2008. Source: Wikileaks. 103. Anne Patterson, Reviewing our Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy. US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 23 September 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 104. Ministry of Home Affairs National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, p. 72. 105. Ibid., p. 72. 106. Ibid., p. 63. 107. Sagnik Choudhury and Y. P. Rajesh, ‘Terror at Taj Hotel could have ended first night itself’, The Indian Express, 4 June 2009. 108. Major Iqbal proposed the sea route plan; Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 109. Jessica Stern, ‘Pakistan’s Jihad Culture’, Foreign Affairs, November/ December 2000. 110. Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, pp. 87–90. 111. Major Haroon’s interview to Syed Saleem Shahzad in Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 102.

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112. Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 102. 113. ‘Confession of Kasab’. 114. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 54. 115. Ibid., p. 39. 116. Shishir Gupta, ‘ISI chief met Lakhvi in jail after 26/11: Headley to NIA’, The Indian Express, 23 August 2010. 117. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 118. Syed Saleem Shahzad, ‘Al-Qaeda’s Guerilla Chief Lays Out Strategy’, Asia Times Online, 15 October 2009. 119. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto described how one ISI officer created TNSM to exert power; Bhutto, Daughter of the East, p. 420; President Zardari informed the US Ambassador that ‘mosques and madrassas had become a “cottage industry” in Pakistan’ in Anne Patterson, Ambassador’s Condolence Call On Asif Zardari, US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 28 January 2008, Source: Wikileaks; Gen. Ayub Khan, Gen. Yahya Khan, Gen. Zia-ul Haq and Gen. Pervez Musharraf taught militant leaders to become dictators or sole commanders of Pakistan; for discussion see Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan, p. 4 and the rest; Syed Saleem Shahzad discusses extensively how militant leaders consider themselves as great generals or future rulers of a Sharia ruled Pakistan; Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, 2011. 120. JeM, HuA, the LeT and HM orchestrated major attacks and plots like the parliament attack, J&K Assembly attack, the hijacking of Air India flight IC-814 and the Mumbai attacks. The ISI supported all these groups and all these attacks; Nicholas Howenstein, ‘The Jihadi Terrain in Pakistan’, Pakistan Security Research Unit, Research Report 1, Bradford University, 5 February 2008; K. Alan Kronstadt,. ‘Pakistan-US Relations: A Summary’, Congressional Research Service, 16 May 2008. 121. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, pp. 222–27. 122. The ‘South Asian Terrorism Portal’ lists 48 terrorist groups operating in Pakistan. This is a testimony to the fact that being a leader of a terrorist group is rewarding and attractive; ‘Terrorist and Extremist Groups in Pakistan’, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/ terroristoutfits/group_list.htm (accessed 2 March 2011). 123. Mumbai Police, ‘Interrogation of Ajmal Kasab’, 27 November 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwKNQDKsVHk&feature= channel (accessed 3 December 2010). 124. Ibid. 125. Ibid. 126. ‘Confession of Kasab’.

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Notes

127. ‘Lashkar tested sea route to Mumbai in 2007 dry run’, The Hindu, 28 November 2008. 128. Steve Cole, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba’, The New Yorker, 1 December 2008. 129. ‘Confession of Kasab’, p. 13. 130. ‘Confession of Kasab’, p. 14. 131. Dhar, Fulcrum of Evil: ISI-CIA-Al-Qaeda Nexus, p. 142. 132. Rukka means note. Only those who acquire the note from the LeT with a unique set of instructions are allowed further training at the LeT training camps. 133. ‘Confession of Kasab’, p. 17. 134. Ibid., p. 18. 135. Ibid., p. 19. 136. Ibid., p. 20. 137. Ibid., p. 24. 138. Ibid., p. 22. 139. Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case, 25 February, Mumbai, p. 11. 140. Ibid., p. 11.

Chapter 4 1. Government of Maharashtra, Greater Bombay District Gazetteer. Maharashtra State Gazetteers, Vol. 27, No. 1, Gazetteer Department, 1960. 2. Author’s interview with a Leopold Café staff member 23 January 2010. 3. Author’s interview with the owner of the cyber café, 23 January 2010. 4. Kamte, To The Last Bullet, p. 4. 5. Vinita Kamte, the wife of slain police officer Ashok Kamte, managed to procure some of the wireless logs of the Ericsson and Motorola networks through her prolonged battle and invocation of the RTI act; Vinita Kamte, To The Last Bullet, p. 41. 6. Author’s interview with eyewitnesses, who were residents of the locality and were present on the night of 26 November 2008, January 2010 to February 2010. 7. Jadhav narrated his tale to the Mumbai based news daily, DNA, on 30 December 2008. Salaskar was the in-charge of Mumbai Police’s antiextortion cell and Jadhav had been his assistant for the past 12 years. 8. Kasab’s confession. 9. Mumbai Police Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case, 25 February 2009, Common Investigation, File – 1, Detection Crime Branch, CID, Mumbai, p. 65. 10. ‘Terror Timeline’, Outlook, 28 November 2008. 11. Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case.

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12. Ibid. 13. Santosh Mishra, ‘Terrorists sexually humiliated guests before killing them’ Mumbai Mirror, 25 December 2008. 14. Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case. 15. Charles Allen, ‘The Taj Mahal hotel will, as before, survive the threat of destruction’, The Guardian, 3 December 2008. 16. ‘26/11: The first few hours at the Taj’, The Hindu, 21 November 2009. 17. Sagnik Chowdhury, and Y. P. Rajesh, ‘Terror at Taj Hotel could have ended first night itself’, The Indian Express, 4 June 2009. 18. ‘When cops shied away from a fight on 26/11’, The Indian Express, 26 November 2009.

Chapter 5 1. P. Chidambaram, ‘Suo-Motu Statement of the Home Minister in Parliament’, Lok Sabha Debate, 11 December 2008. 2. Saroj Kumar Rath, ‘New Terror Architecture in South Asia: 26/11 Mumbai Attacks Inquiry’, India Quarterly, 66 (4), October–December 2010, p. 372. 3. The President of the United States. ‘Extraordinary Treaty with India’, Senate, 105th Congress, 1st Session, Treaty Doc, 1997, pp. 105–30. 4. Letter from the Office of International Affairs, Government of US, dated 18 February 2009, to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, acknowledging the request from India. 5. Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case, 25 February 2009, File No. 2, pp. 17–19. 6. Ibid., p. 113. 7. Email conversation [email protected] and [email protected] (accessed 25 November 2008); Ibid., p. 281. 8. Ibid., p. 115. 9. Vaiju Naravane, ‘Italian Police explain how VOIP was used on 26/11’, The Hindu, 23 November 2009. 10. Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case, 25 February 2009, File No. 2, pp. 431–33. 11. Ibid., pp. 441–43. 12. Ministry of External Affairs, Dossier on Mumbai Terrorist Attacks November 26–29, 2008, Government of India, January, author’s collection, 2009, p. 50. 13. Mumbai Police, Final Report In the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, 37th Court, Esplanade, Mumbai, 2009, p. 1. 14. Supreme Court of India Mohammed Ajmal Mohammad Amir Kasab@ Abu Mujahid v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal appeal nos. 1899–1900 of 2011, 2012, p. 183.

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Notes

15. ‘Terror Attacks in Mumbai’, The Times of India, 27 November 2008. 16. Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, interviewed by Susanne Koelbl, ‘Terror is Our Enemy, Not India’, Der Spiegel, 6 January 2009. 17. Maharashtra Government, Report of the High Level Enquiry Committee on 26/11, 30 December 2008, pp. 74–75. 18. Ministry of Defence, Thirty Sixth Report, ‘Status of Implementation of Unified Command for Armed Forces’, Standing Committee on Defence (2008–2009), Lok Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi, February 2009, p. 24. 19. Anne Patterson, Pakistan: Mumbai Situation Update, US Secret Cable from Islamabad, Secret Cable, 1 December 2008, http://www.the guardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/180720 (accessed 20 December 2011). 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Ted Osius, Mumbai Attacks Update: Diplomats in Delhi Deliver United Messages, US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 2 December 2008, https:// www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08NEWDELHI3044_a.html (accessed 30 December 2011). 23. Anne Patterson, Zardari Comments on India/Nawaz Sharif, US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 5 January 2009, http://www.theguardian.com/ world/the-us-embassy-cables+india?page=4 (accessed 31 December 2011). 24. David Mulford, Menon Tough on Pakistan, Bullish on Bilateral, US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 9 January 2009, https://www.wikileaks.org/ plusd/cables/09NEWDELHI48_a.html (accessed 30 December 2011). 25. Ibid. 26. Gerald Feierstein, Pakistan Reactions To Terror In Mumbai, US Secret Cable from Islamabad, US Embassy in Islamabad, 28 November 2008, http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/the-cables/ article2032339.ece (accessed 30 December 2011). 27. Anne Patterson, Zardari Comments on India/Nawaz Sharif, US Secret Cable from Islamabad, 5 January 2009, http://www.theguardian.com/ world/the-us-embassy-cables+india?page=4 (accessed 31 December 2011). 28. David Mulford, Mumbai Attacks Update: India Dismisses Pakistan’s Efforts, Defends its Actions at UN, US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 10 December 2008, http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/ the-cables/article1568931.ece (accessed 31 December 2011). 29. Stateless or drifter from a dusty land, The Telegraph, 4 December 2008. 30. ‘Captured terrorist Kasab my son, says father in Pakistan’, The Times of India, 13 December 2008.

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31. ‘India says all options open, forwards Kasab’s letter to Pak’, The Hindu, 23 December 2008. 32. Syed Irfan Raza, ‘Mastermind Lakhvi in custody: Eight named in FIR: 30 questions given to India’, Dawn, 13 February 2009; M. Rama Rao, ‘Flip-flop Pakistan finally admits to LeT role in Mumbai’s 26/11, arrests 6 wanted persons’, Asian Tribune, 13 February 2009. 33. ‘Lakhvi challenges indictment in Lahore High Court’, The Hindu, 3 December 2009. 34. ‘Govt. fails in bid to keep Hafiz Saeed in detention’, Dawn, 26 May 2010. 35. Raja Mudassir, ‘2008 Mumbai attacks: Contempt petition withdrawn against interior minister’, Express Tribune, August 14, 2011. 36. Arun Shourie, ‘Debate on the Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai’, Rajya Sabha Debate, 11 December 2008. 37. Arun Shourie, ‘Mumbai Attacks’, Reuters, 28 November 2008. 38. Vir Sanghvi, ‘We are all Bombaites’, Hindustan Times, 29 November 2008. 39. Manmohan Singh, PM’s Address to the Nation, 27 November 2008. 40. Manmohan Singh, PM’s Intervention, Lok Sabha Debate, 11 December 2008. 41. Arun Shourie, ‘Debate on the Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai’, Rajya Sabha Debate, 11 December 2008. 42. L. K. Advani, ‘Debate on the Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai’, Lok Sabha Debate, 11 December 2008. 43. Priya Sahgal, ‘Less Than Divine’, India Today, 5 January 2009, p. 20. 44. Department of State, ‘Country Report on Terrorism’, Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism, 30 April 2008, http://www.state. gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/103709.htm (accessed 8 March 2011). 45. Ministry of Defence, Thirty Sixth Report, ‘Status of Implementation of Unified Command for Armed Forces, Standing Committee on Defence (2008–2009), Lok Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi, February 2009, p. 24. 46. Basu, Constitution of India, 2007. 47. T. C. A. Srinivasavaradan, Federal Concept: The Indian Experience, New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1992. 48. Vohra, ‘Is India under Threat: Growing Concerns about India’s Internal Security’.

Chapter 6 1. ‘Tackling Pakistan’, India Today, 19 January 2009, p. 26. 2. Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace? Pakistan’s Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability’, p. 38. 3. ‘Background Note: Israel’, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Department of State, 1 December, 2011; B. Raman, ‘Cross-Border Terrorist Challenges

338

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19.

20.

Notes Facing India and their Implications for US Counter-Terrorism Policy’, South Asian Analysis Group, 30 October 2003. Manmohan Singh, ‘Debate on Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai’, Lok Sabha Debate, 11 December 2008, pp. 469–653. Manmohan Singh, Chief Minister’s Conference on Internal Security, Prime Minister’s Office Release, New Delhi, 6 January 2009. Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case, 25 February 2009, Mumbai, p. 1. Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd, Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9, 6 May 2009, p. 5. Indian media and Indian experts viewed the attack through the prism of these three assertions. However, the Headley interrogation changed the interpretation; Raj Chengappa, 2008, ‘The Real Boss’, India Today, 22 December 2008, p. 17; ‘Interview with Ejaz Naqvi, defence lawyer in the Mumbai attack trial, 21 January 2010, Mumbai. Nearly all Pakistan-based militant organizations joined hands in Afghanistan against the West. The LeT was resisting this call. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 53. Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 82. Ibid., p. 83. Ibid., p. 103. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, p. 60. Ashley J. Tellis, Bad Company — Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan, Testimony before the United States House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, 11 March 2010. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 61. Carlotta Gall, Ismail Khan, Pir Zubair Shah, and Taimoor Shah, ‘Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Unify in Face of US Influx’, The New York Times, 26 March 2009. Haji Mujtaba Khan, ‘Taliban rename their group’, The Nation, 23 February 2009. In all, Pakistan has signed four peace agreements with the Pakistani Taliban from April 2004 until May 2008; ‘Pakistan, Taliban Militants sign peace agreement’, Associated Press, 2 September 2006; ‘Pakistani Militants Call Truce’, BBC, 7 February 2008. Author’s interview with senior police officer Vidhi Kumar Virdi in Srinagar, 20 April 2010.

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21. As per the State Government data, 43,460 people had been killed in the Kashmir insurgency; Randeep Singh Nandal, ‘State data refutes claim of 1 lakh killed in Kashmir’, The Times of India, 20 June 2011. 22. Saroj Kumar Rath, ‘The Death of Osama: View from Pakistan’, Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, vol. 6, no. 2, October 2011, pp. 151–67. 23. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 60. 24. Ibid., p. 61. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., p. 61. 27. Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 82. 28. Captain Khurram’s email to Syed Saleem Shahzad on 23 December 2005; as quoted in Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 83. 29. Anne Patterson, Pakistan: Mumbai Situation Update. US Secret Cable from Islamabad, Secret Cable, 1 December 2008. Source: Wikileaks. 30. Press Trust of India, ‘Zardari moots meeting of India, Pak Intel chiefs’, The Times of India, 11 May 2009. 31. ‘Zardari’s ‘no first use of nukes’ remark takes Pak by surprise’, The Indian Express, 23 November 2008. 32. Raj Chengappa, ‘The Real Boss’, India Today, 22 December 2008, p. 19. 33. Ibid., pp. 17–25. 34. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Press Release on Fifth Round Of PakistanIndia Interior/Home Secretary Level Talks On Terrorism And Drugs Trafficking, Islamabad, 2008, PR. No. 358/2008. 35. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 112. 36. Ibid., pp. 146–47. 37. Anshuman Dutta, ‘Unwilling to be sitting ducks, 1,700 Pakistani soldiers desert army, surrender to militants’, Mid-day, 31 March 2009. 38. Confession of Kasab; Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 39. Hillary Clinton, Terrorist Finance: Action Request for Senior Level Engagement on Terrorism Finance, US Secret Cable from Washington DC, (Ref: US, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Kuwait and Islamabad), 30 December 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 40. Josy Joseph, ‘LeT’s Gulf Arm Funded 26/11, Bangalore Blasts?’, The Times of India, 15 May 2010. 41. ‘Dubai national suspected to be part of network’, The Indian Express, 2 June 2009. 42. Josy Joseph, ‘LeT’s Gulf Arm Funded 26/11, Bangalore Blasts?’, The Times of India, 15 May 2010. 43. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley.

340

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44. Ministry of External Affairs, Dossier on Mumbai Terrorist Attacks November 26–29, 2008. Government of India, January 2009, author’s collection, p. 50. 45. Saroj Kumar Rath, ‘New Terror Architecture in South Asia: 26/11 Mumbai Attacks Inquiry’, p. 366. 46. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 47. Northern District Court of Illinois, 209. USA v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Eastern Division, CR 830, No. 09, 2009, p. 8. 48. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 49. Mumbai Police, Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case. February 25, Mumbai, File No. 4(A), submitted at the Special Session Court, Arthur Road Jail, 2009, pp. 13–26. 50. Pankaj Mishra, ‘Fresh Blood from an Old Wound,’ The New York Times, 2 December 2008; Thomas Friedman, ‘Calling All Pakistanis,’ The New York Times, 2 December 2008. 51. Eric Schmitt, Mark Mazzetti and Jane Perlez, ‘Pakistan’s spies aided group tied to Mumbai siege’, The New York Times, 7 December 2008; Kathy Gannon, ‘Mumbai Attack Puts Focus on Pakistan Militant Link,’ Washington Post, 1 December 2008; Claus Christian Malzahn, ‘India Is Pointing in the Right Direction’, Der Spiegel, 29 November 2008. 52. Jason Burke, ‘Pakistan intelligence services aided Mumbai terror attacks’, The Guardian, 18 October 2010. 53. Northern District Court of Illinois, USA v. Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed. CR 830, No 09, Eastern Division, October 2009; Ministry of Home Affairs National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, pp. 7–8. 54. Headley is categorical and frank in his description about the linkages of the Pakistan army and the ISI with the LeT; Ministry of Home Affairs National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 8. 55. David Headley used to interact with this ISI officer by phone. Only a couple of times did he manage to meet Major Sameer Ali in Lahore; Ibid., p. 8. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., p. 39. 58. Ibid., p. 89. 59. Abhishek Sharan, ‘ISI chief told Lakhvi to deny Lashkar role in 26/11 attack’, Hindustan Times, 26 October 2010. 60. Ministry of Home Affairs National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 61. The LeT’s fi nancial support from Saudi Arabia and non-resident Pakistanis was independent from ISI influence.

Notes

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62. Ministry of External Affairs, Dossier on Mumbai Terrorist Attacks November 26–29, 2008. Government of India, January 2009, author’s collection, p. 54. 63. Author’s interaction with Abhishek Sharan, the Hindustan Times journalist who has been following the LeT for a long time, January 2011. 64. Charles Allen, ‘Lessons from the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks’, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Dirksen Senate Office Building, 8 January 2009. 65. K. Alan Kronstadt, ‘Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai, India, and Implications for US Interests’, Congressional Research Service, Washington DC, 19 December 2008; C. Christine Fair, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba beyond Bin Laden: Enduring Challenges for the Region and the International Community’, US Senate, Foreign Relations Committee Hearing, ‘AlQaeda, the Taliban, and Other Extremist Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan’, 24 May 2011; David H. Petraeus, ‘US Senate Committee on Armed Services’, Washington, DC, 29 June 2010; Dennis Blair, ‘Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’, 2 February 2010; US Senate, ‘US Select Committee on Intelligence’, 111th Congress, Washington DC, 2 February 2010; C. Christine Fair, Implications of the November 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Attack Upon Several Targets in the Indian MegaCity of Mumbai, House Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection, 11 March 2009; Ashley J. Tellis, ‘Bad Company — Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan’, US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, 11 March 2010; Marvin G.Weinbaum, ‘Bad Company: Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan’, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, 11 March 2010; there are other innumerable researches, assessments and observations on the matter available in the public domain, apart from many classified reports exclusively in the US Government’s possession. 66. Since all the studies were commissioned by the US Government, their mandate was to assess the LeT’s capabilities to harm US interests. Those which were not commissioned by the US Government also took a panAmerican viewpoint where they were more concerned about the US’ future security. 67. Vappala Balachandran, ‘Dealing with Aftermath of Attacks: Lessons from Mumbai and elsewhere on what to do and what not to do’, Oxford University, UK; S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2009, ‘The 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks’, Nanyang University of Technology, Singapore.

342

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68. Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis, ‘Terror Strikes Mumbai: The World Reacts’, 4 December 2008; Overseas Research Foundation, n.d. ‘Mumbai Attacks: Response & Lessons’; Summerjit Ghosh, 2008. ‘Mumbai Terror Attacks: An Analysis’, 2009, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. 69. India Today, Frontline, Outlook, The Times of India, DNA, The Pioneer, Tribune, The Hindu, The Indian Express and Hindustan Times, to mention a few. 70. District Court of Virginia, USA v. Randall Todd Royer, Criminal No. 03, June 2003. 71. Mark H. Buzby, US Navy Commanding, ‘Recommendation for Continued Detention’. US Secret Cable, Department of Defense, Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 2010. Source: Wikileaks. 72. Dennis Blair, ‘Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’, House Per-manent Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington DC, 3 February 2010. 73. Senior US government officers always mention the capability of the LeT to be aligned with al-Qaeda; ‘US likens LeT to al-Qaeda’, Dawn, 3 June 2011; C. Christine Fair, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba beyond Bin Laden: Enduring Challenges for the Region and the International Community’; US Senate, Foreign Relations Committee Hearing, ‘Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Other Extremist Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan’, 24 May 2011. 74. The LeT participated in few attacks outside India. The number of LeT attacks can be found on the South Asia Terrorism Portal, http://www. satp.org/ (accessed 14 April 2014). 75. ‘Incidents Involving LeT 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012’, South Asian Terrorism Portal, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/ states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/lashkar_e_toiba.htm (accessed 1 April 2011). 76. All the three cities and precise places of bombings were scouted by David Coleman Headley; Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 77. Independent and non-verifiable sources claim the percentage to be Barelvis 48 per cent, Deobandis 25 per cent, Ithna Ashari 19 per cent, Ahl-e-Hadith 4 per cent, Islamilis 1 per cent and Bohras 25 per cent; Gupta, Encyclopaedia of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, p. 172. 78. Official Censuses only cover religions, not sub-sects in the religions; Government of Pakistan, Population Census Organization, http://www. census.gov.pk/Religion.htm (accessed 1 April 2011). 79. Government of Pakistan, Census of Pakistan 2011, Population Census Organization, http://www.census.gov.pk/census2011.php (accessed 1 April 2011).

Notes

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80. Gupta, Encyclopaedia of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, p. 172; Syed Farooq Hasnat, Global Security Watch: Pakistan, California: ABC-CLIO 2011, p. 129. 81. Ajmal Kasab said, ‘In the training of “Daura-e-Sufa”, 30 more boys were there along with us. In the 29 days’ training, first they converted us from Sunni into Ahale-Hadis and we were taught the customs of Hadis’; ‘Confession of Kasab’, p. 13. 82. The act of declaring a non-practising Muslim an apostate; Shahzad, Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. XVI. 83. Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 100. 84. Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad, p. 196. 85. Jane Perlez and Salman Masood, ‘Terror Ties Run Deep in Pakistan, Mumbai Case Shows’, The New York Times, 27 July 2009. 86. On 13 January 2009, two hardcore LeT militants and two police personnel were killed during an encounter at Lallu Khetar in the Kalakote area of Rajouri District. 87. Confession of Kasab; Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley. 88. Gilles Dorronsoro, ‘Afghanistan: The Impossible Transition’, Carnegie Endowment Paper, Washington DC, June 2011, p. 15; Anirudh Bhattacharyya, ‘LeT Threat to Coalition Forces in Afghanistan,’ Hindustan Times, 5 July 2010; Alissa J. Rubin, ‘Militant Group Expands Attacks in Afghanistan’, The New York Times, 15 June 2010; and ‘Analyzing the Effect of Lashkar-e-Taiba on the Afghan Insurgency,’ Strategic Discourse, 16 June 2010, http://strategic-discourse.com/2010/06/analyzing-theeffectof-lashkar-e-taiba-on-the-afghan-insurgency (accessed 4 April 2011). 89. Myra MacDonald, ‘Keeping Raymond Davis and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Perspective’, Reuters, 15 March 2011. 90. There is already a report of an LeT and LTTE connection. Bangladesh has long been acting as the transit route for the LeT; ‘Links between LeT and LTTE exposed’, Asian Tribune, 30 December 2008. 91. Robert F. Willard, ‘Testimony before the US Senate, Committee on Armed Services, 26 March 2010, Washington DC, p. 19. 92. S. Balakrishnan, ‘Lashkar takes over D-Company’, The Times of India, 28 March 2008. 93. Ibid. 94. ‘Jihadi connection now stretches from Kashmir to Kovalam’, The Economic Times, 8 October 2008. 95. Praveen Swami, ‘India’s Elections and the Islamist Terror Threat,’ Asian Conflict Reports, Issue 4, April 2009. 96. David Mulford, Menon Tough on Pakistan, Bullish on Bilateral Relationship in Discussion with Assistant Secretary Boucher, US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 9 January 2009. Source: Wikileaks.

344

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97. Bill Roggio, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba chief again placed under house arrest’, 21 September 2009; South Asian Terrorism Portal, Lashkar-e-Taiba. 98. David Mulford, D/NSA supports intel sharing on terrorism; says terror in south not new but tactics and targets are, US Secret Cable from New Delhi, Secret Cable, Wikileaks, 9 January 2006. Source: Wikileaks. 99. David Mulford, Menon Tough on Pakistan, Bullish on Bilateral Relationship in Discussion with Assistant Secretary Boucher, US Secret Cable from New Delhi, 9 January 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 100. Sebastian Rotella, ‘The American Behind India’s 9/11 — and How the US Botched Chances to Stop Him’, Pro Publica, 22 November 2011. 101. Iftikhar A. Khan, ‘New List of Banned Outfits Released’, Dawn, 6 November 2011. 102. Press Trust of India, ‘Lashkar raising 21 female terrorists against India: Army’, The Times of India, 3 January 2012. 103. Ashok Sethi, DIG, BSF Interview with Doordarshan, aired on 3 February 2012. 104. Shahzad, Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban, p. 86. 105. Christina Lamb, ‘Nurseries of Terror Surge in Pakistan’, The Times, 30 March 2003, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/ 0,176-628209,00.html (accessed 23 May 2010). 106. A taped speech of Hafiz Saeed played on Kashmir Day, at the Jamia Mosque Ghousia, Rawalpindi, 5 February 2002. 107. ‘26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed makes public appearance, supports blasphemy laws’, The Times of India, 16 December 2010. 108. Rana Tanvir, ‘Hafiz Saeed vows jihad against India will continue’, Express Tribune, 19 December 2010. 109. Hafiz Saeed, ‘International Mujahedeen Conference’, November 1999, quoted in District Court of Virginia USA v. Randall Todd Royer, Criminal No. 03, June 2003, p. 3. 110. On 30 September 2005, the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published an article titled ‘Muhammeds ansigt’ (The face of Muhammad). The publication of the cartoons with it aroused significant controversy in the Muslim community; Northern District Court of Illinois USA v. David Coleman Headley’. Case Number 09 CR 830, Eastern Division, 2009, p. 12. 111. In June 2010, David Headley told his interrogators that ‘India will remain a target for LeT’; Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 14; Difa-ePakistan, ‘About Us’, http://www.difaepakistan.com/about-us.html (accessed 28 February 2012). 112. After the Shimla Accord of 1972, Pakistan could not use force against India to alter its boundary. Hence the army found a way out and supported a proxy force; Haqqani, Pakistan’s Endgame in Kashmir, p. 43.

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113. Rana Tanveer, ‘Hafiz Saeed vows jihad against India will continue’, Express Tribune, 19 December 2011. 114. Praveen Swami, ‘Lashkar’s renewed threats cause unease in Kashmir’, The Hindu, 9 February 2012. 115. Mudassir Raja, ‘Current situation retribution for allowing our soil’s use against Afghans: Hariz Saeed’, Express Tribune, 22 January 2012. 116. Shuja Nawaz, ‘Who Controls Pakistan’s Security Forces?’, USIP Special Report 297, December 2011. 117. The rally of Difa-e-Pakistan on 22 January 2012 was attended by former Army Chief Gen. Mirza Aslam Baig and former ISI chief Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul; ‘Defence of Pakistan rally: Govt warned against NATO route restoration’, Difa-e-Pakistan News, http://www.difaepakistan. com/news/35-defence-of-pakistan-rally-govt-warned-against-natoroute-restoration-.html (accessed 24 January 2012). 118. Owais Raza, ‘One for all: Jamatud Dawa gathering concludes with a rallying call’, Express Tribune, 24 July 2011. 119. Difa-e-Pakistan was formed in October 2011; Difa-e-Pakistan, ‘About Us’, http://www.difaepakistan.com/about-us.html (accessed 28 February 2012). 120. Difa-e-Pakistan, ‘About Us’, from http://www.difaepakistan.com/ about-us.html (accessed 28 February 2012). 121. Mudassir Raja, ‘Current situation retribution for allowing our soil’s use against Afghans: Hariz Saeed’, Express Tribune, 22 January 2012. 122. Press Trust of India, ‘Pakistan cannot afford war over Kashmir: Prime Minister Gilani’, The Times of India, 6 February 2012. 123. Irfan Ghauri, ‘North Waziristan: US may attack, but they’ll think 10 times’, Express Tribune, 19 October 2011. 124. Taha Siddiqui, ‘Difa-e-Pakistan Part 1.2: Jihadis itch for resurgence’, Express Tribune, 11 February 2012. 125. Hafiz Saeed, ‘Pakistan’s nukes are the real US target: Hafiz Saeed’, Press Club of Karachi, 14 January 2012, http://www.difaepakistan. com/news/32-pakistans-nukes-are-the-real-us-target-hafiz-saeed.html (accessed 28 February 2012). 126. Ibid. 127. The objective of the outfit is to establish ‘Nizam-e-Mustafa’; Ministry of Home Affairs, National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, p. 14. 128. Rana Tanveer, ‘Hafiz Saeed vows jihad against India will continue’, The Express Tribune, 19 December 2011. 129. Ministry of Home Affairs. National Investigation Agency Report on David Coleman Headley, 10 June 2010, pp. 60–61. 130. Gilles Dorronsoro, ‘Afghanistan: The Impossible Transition’, Carnegie Endowment Paper, Washington DC, June 2011, p. 15.

346

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131. Alissa J. Rubin, ‘Militant Group Expands Attacks in Afghanistan’, The New York Times, 15 June 2010. 132. Thomas E. Ricks, ‘Adm. Mullen accuses Pakistan’s ISI of treachery’, Foreign Policy, 23 September 2011, http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/ posts/2011/09/23/adm_mullen_accuses_pakistans_isi_of_treachery_ but_says_lets_keep_talking (accessed 2 March 2012). 133. Robert F. Willard, 010. Testimony before the US Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Washington, DC, 26 March 2010, p. 20. 134. Ibid., p. 19. 135. Hillary Clinton, UN 1267 (Al-Qaida/Taliban) Sanctions: USG Opposition to Focal Point De-Listing Request for JuD and Hafiz Saeed, US Secret Cable from Washington, 10 August 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 136. Ibid. 137. Hillary Clinton, Terrorist Finance: Action Request for Senior Level Engagement on Terrorism Finance. US Secret Cable from Washington DC (Ref: US, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Kuwait and Islamabad), 30 December 2009. Source: Wikileaks. 138. The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on four senior LeT leaders in May 2008 in an effort to stifle the LeT’s fundraising and operational capabilities. Those designated included Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Haji Muhammad Ashraf and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq. 139. Department of State, ‘Difa-e-Pakistan Council Rally in Karachi’, Office of the Spokesperson, Washington DC, 16 February 2012. 140. US Department of Treasury Press Centre, ‘Treasury Sanctions Lashkare-Tayyiba Leaders and Founders’, 28 September 2011. 141. Karkare’s death in the Mumbai attacks made the officers nervous and triggered a cover-up operation. Soon after Karkare was wheeled into hospital for treatment, the substandard bulletproof jacket he was wearing went missing. The file about the purchase of the jackets too went missing; Ashish Khetan, ‘Karkare file nails bulletproof vest scam’, India Today, 1 July 2010, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/karkarefile-nails-bulletproof-vest-scam/1/103806.html (accessed 2 July 2010). 142. Maharashtra Government, Report of the High Level Enquiry Committee on 26/11. 30 December 2008, p. 77. 143. Interview with Prithviraj Chavan, ‘Couldn’t contact police chief for 15 minutes after Mumbai blasts’, NDTV, 15 July 2011.

Chapter 7 1. Mumbai Police. Chargesheet in Mumbai Attacks Case, 25 February 2009, Mumbai, File No. 4(A), submitted to the Special Session Court, Arthur Road Jail, pp. 7–12.

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2. Prosecution Sanction Under Section 188; Ministry of Home Affairs, Order, Government of India, 1 April 2009, Common Investigation File No. 4, p. 2. 3. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, ‘Proposal for sanction of the Central Government u/s 188’, 1 April 2009. 4. Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai. The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9, 6 May 2009, pp. 1–51. 5. Mumbai Police. Final Report In the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate. 37th Court, Esplanade, Mumbai, 2009 File. 2. 6. Ibid., p. 23. 7. The court only ordered punishment for Kasab as if he alone orchestrated the attack; Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai. 2009. The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab. 8. Ibid., p. 1472. 9. There is hardly any mention of the grand design of the attacks. The over 15,000 page chargesheet is full of records about the deaths and destruction of properties; Mumbai Police, Final Report in the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate. 10. Unlike the 9/11 trials, ICTY trial and Nuremberg trial, despite the war crime charges attached with the 26/11, no serious efforts were spared to hold individuals or groups accountable for the crime; Mumbai Police, Final Report in the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate. 11. Chargesheets in these cases are no different from other cases. 12. Author’s interaction with Ad. Ejaz Naqvi during the trial of the Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, 2009, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab. Justice Tahilyani refused to accept Headley’s revelation. 13. On 21 March 2010, Ejaz Naqvi, the lawyer of Sabauddin Ahmad, contacted me and sought a copy of Headley’s Plea Agreement. He wanted to bring the notice of the court to the culpability of Headley after his admission in front of an American Court. I promptly sent a copy but the court refused to take cognizance of the matter. 14. Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab. 15. Mumbai Police ‘Draft Charges in Mumbai Terror Attacks’, Session Case No. 167/2009, 2009, pp. 1–166. 16. Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab. 17. Ibid., p. 1. 18. Sanjay Singh, ‘BSE was Lashkar target, says UP after holding six’, The Indian Express, 11 February 2008. 19. ‘Court allows terrorist Fahim Ansari to be taken to Mumbai’, DNA, 12 December 2012.

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20. Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai. The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9, 2009, pp. 1412–13. 21. Special Public Prosecutor’s Written Submission, Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai. The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9. 22. Special Public Prosecutor’s Written Submission, Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9. 23. Ibid., p. 1551. 24. Ibid., p. 1499. 25. Ibid., p. 1502. 26. Ibid., p. 1504. 27. Supplementary Documents, Form 5-A, Common Investigation in Terrorist Attack on Mumbai; Ibid. 28. Ibid., p. 1512. 29. Submission of the Defence Lawyer, Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai. The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9, 2009. 30. Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9, p. 1520. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., pp. 1526–27. 33. Harmen van der Wilt, ‘Joint Criminal Enterprise: Possibilities and Limitations’, Journal of International Criminal Justice, vol. 5, issue 1, 2006, pp. 91–108. 34. Joe Smydo, ‘Atrocities in Yugoslavia unraveled much later’, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 29 August 2004, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/ 04242/368273.stm (accessed 1 March 2012). 35. Rath, ‘India-Japan: Partners against Terrorism’, p. 139. 36. Collectively all the documents of the Mumbai attack case exceed 15,000 pages. A great portion of the chargesheet is in Marathi. The author has accessed the entire set of documents. 37. Justice Taya and the author’s interview with Ujjwal Nikam in Mumbai on 8 April 2010. 38. N. Ganesh’s interview with Ujjwal Nikam in the presence of the author in Mumbai on 8 April 2010. 39. M. Jagannadha Rao, 197th Report on Appointment of Public Prosecutor. Law Commission of India, July 2006, pp. 15–16. 40. Supreme Court of India. R. Sarala v. T.S. Velu. AIR 2000 SC 1731, 2000. 41. M. Jagannadha Rao, 197th Report on Appointment of Public Prosecutor, pp. 15–16. 42. Varun Singh, ‘Ujjwal Nikam finally becomes a Mumbaikar’, Mid-Day, 24 February 2010.

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43. Kartikeya, ‘LeT should foot bill for damage’, The Times of India, 4 May 2010. 44. Ibid. 45. N. Mukherjee, ‘From Bad to Battered’, India Today, 15 December 2008. 46. Ujjwal Nikam, Address to Media after Judgment, Times Now, 3 May 2010. 47. Timothy Roemer, FBI Director Mueller Discusses Headley Case with Indian Home Minister Chidambaram. Secret Cable from New Delhi, 26 February 2010. Source: Wikileaks. 48. Ibid. 49. P. Chidambaram, Address to Media in New Delhi after Mumbai Terror Judgment, Times Now, 3 May 2010. 50. Josy Joseph, ‘Rules on evidence forcing cops to dress up cases?’, The Times of India, 5 May 2010. 51. Author’s email interaction with Justice Chikako Taya on December 7, 2009. 52. The explanation is provided by Justice Taya during the interaction with the author, 30 March 2010. 53. Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai. The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9, p. 1124. 54. Ibid., pp. 1123–24. 55. District Court of Virginia, USA v. Randall Todd Royer, Criminal No. 03, June 2003, pp. 2–4. 56. Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9, 6 May 2009, p. 10. 57. Ibid., p. 1430. 58. Defence Counsel’s submission, Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9, 6 May 2009. 59. Author’s interview with Ezaj Naqvi in Mumbai on 6 February 2010. 60. Author’s interview with Shahid Azmi in Mumbai on 6 February 2010. 61. No new facts or evidence were provided by the special public prosecutor; ‘Confirmation Case no. 2 of 2010’ Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, S.C. No. 175/9, 6 May 2009. 62. High Court of Judicature at Bombay, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammed Ajmal Moh. Amir Kasab, Confirmation Case No. 2 of 2010 in Sessions Case No.175 of 2009, pp. 1208. 63. Ibid., p. 1057. 64. Nariman, Before Memory Fades, p. 32. 65. Nariman, Before Memory Fades, p. 32. 66. Ibid., p. 33.

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67. Swati Deshpande, ‘Nikam gets lion’s share of legal fees: Rs. 9L’, The Times of India, 22 February 2011. 68. PTI, ‘No Remorse’, The Hindu, 22 February 2011. 69. ‘26/11: Maha govt’s case against Indian accused weak, says SC’, The Indian Express, 2 September 2011. 70. Supreme Court of India Mohammed Ajmal Mohammad Amir Kasab @ Abu Mujahid v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal appeal nos. 1899–1900 of 2011, 2012, p. 4. 71. Ibid., p. 359. 72. Supreme Court of India. State of Maharashtra v. Fahim Harshad Mohammad Yusuf Ansari & another, Criminal appeal nos. 1961 of 2011, p. 357. 73. Ibid., p. 358. 74. Supreme Court of India Mohammed Ajmal Mohammad Amir Kasab @ Abu Mujahid v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal appeal nos. 1899–1900 of 2011, p. 324. 75. Ibid., p. 353. 76. Nariman, Before Memories Fades, p. 324. 77. The phrase comes from the Roman poet, Horace, who lived in the century before Christ; Lord Denning, Leaves from My Library: An English Anthology, London: Butterworths, 1986, pp. v–vi cited in Nariman, Before Memories Fades, p. 361. 78. Supreme Court of India, Mohammed Ajmal Mohammad Amir Kasab @ Abu Mujahid v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal appeal nos. 1899–1900 of 2011, p. 153. 79. Dileep Padgaonkar, M. M. Ansari, and Radha Kumar, ‘Final Report on A New Compact with the People of Jammu and Kashmir’, Group of Interlocutors for J&K, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, 2012, p. 14. 80. Supreme Court of India, Mohammed Ajmal Mohammad Amir Kasab @ Abu Mujahid v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal appeal nos. 1899–1900 of 2011, 2012, p. 153. 81. Mumbai Police, Final Report In the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate. 37th Court, Esplanade, Mumbai, 2009, p. 16. 82. Ibid., p. 15. 83. Supreme Court of India, Mohammed Ajmal Mohammad Amir Kasab @ Abu Mujahid v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal appeal nos. 1899–1900 of 2011, pp. 246–49. 84. Ibid., p. 215. 85. Ibid., p. 359. 86. Ibid., pp. 215–16. 87. Northern District Court of Illinois, USA v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Eastern Division, CR 830, No. 09, 2009.

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88. Northern District Court of Illinois. USA v. David Coleman Headley’, pp. 15–30. 89. It was only in the plea agreement that Headley admitted his role in the Mumbai attack; USA v. David Coleman Headley, Plea Agreement, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, No 09 CR 830-3, p. 1. 90. Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Northern District Court of Illinois, USA v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Eastern Division, CR 830, No. 09, 2009, p. 26. 91. Patrick Fitzgerald, ‘Government’s Third Memorandum’, Northern District Court of Illinois, 14 December 2011, p. 1. 92. ‘Government’s Santiago Proffer’, Northern District Court of Illinois, 14 December 2011, p. 42. 93. Kalven Jr. and Zeisel, The American Jury, pp. 3–4. 94. US Department of Justice, ‘USA v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana’, ‘Trial Exhibit’, http://www.justice.gov/usao/iln/hot/us_v_rana.html#May23 (accessed 2 March 2012). 95. Ginger Thompson, ‘Terror Trial Witness Ties Pakistan to 2008 Attacks’, The New York Times, 23 May 2011. 96. ‘A Witness Overshadows a Terrorism Defendant’, The New York Times, 7 June 2011. 97. ‘Terror Trial Witness Ties Pakistan to 2008 Attacks’, The New York Times, 23 May 2011. 98. Northern District Court of Illinois, USA v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Eastern Division, CR 830, No. 09. 99. Emma G. Fitzsimmons, ‘Split Verdicts for Man Accused of Terrorism’, The New York Times, 9 June 2011. 100. Ministry of Home Affairs, 2011, ‘Government Disappointed over Rana’s Acquittal’, 10 June 2011, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx (accessed 3 March 2012). 101. Press Trust of India, ‘US govt will not appeal against Rana verdict’, The Economic Times, 11 June 2011. 102. Patrick J. Fitzgerald, ‘Department of Justice Press Release’, 9 June 2011. 103. David H. Petraeus, ‘US Senate, Committee on Armed Services’, Washington DC, 29 June 2010. 104. ITIs are different from the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology. The former offer only a basic diploma course while the latter offer highly specialized acclaimed degree certificates. 105. Praveen Swami, ‘SIMI: Tussle Within’, Frontline, vol. 25, issue 07, 29 March–11 April 2008. 106. Prakash, Terrorism in India, p. 446. 107. Ibid., p. 445. 108. Praveen Swami, ‘Driven by hate’, Frontline, vol. 25, issue 17, 16–29 August 2008; Saurav Mukherjee, ‘Nabbed 26/11 plotter also wanted for Kalupur railway station blast’, The Times of India, 26 June 2012.

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109. Stavan Desai, Anuradha Nagaraj and Sagnik Chowdhury, ‘Cops follow Aurangabad arms haul trail, arrest four and look for key Lashkar man on the run’, The Indian Express, 14 July 2006. 110. ‘Two more held in Aurangabad arms haul case’, The Times of India, 9 June 2006; ‘One more held in arms haul case’, The Hindu, 25 April 2007. 111. ‘Two more held in Aurangabad arms haul case’, The Times of India, 9 June 2006. 112. Prakash, Terrorism in India, p. 448. 113. T. A. Johnson, ‘Once 7/11 suspect, Ansari may have the answers’, The Indian Express, 2 July 2012. 114. Neeraj Chauhan, ‘ISI, Pak forces protect Hafiz Saeed 24×7: Abu Jundal’, The Times of India, 30 June 2012. 115. Josy Joseph, ‘2009 terror plot put Jundal on radar’, The Times of India, 1 July 2012. 116. Mumbai Police, ‘Conversation among Terrorists and their Handlers’, Talk No. 17, 27Q0120K.08B_11_27-Nov-08, 2009. 117. Praveen Swami, ‘Maharashtra fugitive emerges as 26/11 suspect’, New Age Islam, 1 February 2010. 118. Neeraj Chauhan, ‘Abu Jundal escaped arrest in Pakistan at ISI’s behest’, The Times of India, 29 June 2012. 119. ‘Abu Jundal given express treatment by Pakistani government’, The Times of India, 4 July 2012. 120. Saurav Malik and Mala Das,‘The Abu Hamza trail: How US thwarted Pakistan’s attempts to get him deported’, NDTV, 27 June 2012. 121. Josy Joseph, ‘2009 terror plot put Jundal on radar’, The Times of India, 1 July 2012. 122. Neeraj Chauhan, ‘Hafiz Saeed supervised 26/11 plot for a year before actual strike: Abu Jundal’, The Times of India, 20 July 2012. 123. Deeptimaan Tiwary, and Mateen Hafeez, ‘Delhi, Mumbai Police fight over Abu Jundal’, The Times of India, 28 June 2012.

Chapter 8 1. See Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink — The Future of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the West. 2. Mark Mazzetti, ‘A Secret Deal on Drones, Sealed in Blood’, The New York Times, 6 April 2013. 3. Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, p. 184. 4. Confidential Memorandum. n.d. ‘Briefing for Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff’, 10 May 2011. 5. Mansoor Ijaz, ‘Time to take on Pakistan’s jihadist spies’, Financial Times, 10 October 2011.

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6. Shishir Gupta, ‘India Shifts Afghan Policy, Ready to Talk to Taliban’, The Indian Express, 29 March 2010. 7. PTI, ‘Taliban Praises India for Resisting US Pressure on Afghanistan’, The Hindu, 17 June 2012. 8. AFP, ‘India Creating “Anti-Pakistan” Afghanistan: Musharraf’, Express Tribune, 9 November 2010. 9. Alisha J. Rubin, ‘Militant Groups Expands Attacks in Afghanistan’. The New York Times, 15 June 2010. 10. Lord Palmerston, the British Home Secretary at the time of the British Empire said, ‘Nations have no permanent friends or allies: they only have permanent interests’, cited in Stanley R. Sloan, Permanent Alliance?, London: CI Publishing, 2010, p. 3. 11. Dixit, India’s Foreign Policy 1947–2003, pp. 372–3. 12. Press Trust of India, ‘Blaming non-state actors for terror no excuse, says PC’, The Indian Express, 24 July 2011. 13. Data available on the ‘Central Board of Excise and Customs’, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, New Delhi, http://www.cbec.gov.in/ cae1-english.htm (accessed 25 July 2012). 14. Author’s discussion with Nanda Cariappa (son of Gen. K. M. Carriappa) at Madikeri, Karnataka, August 2004. 15. Cariappa, K.M. Cariappa Papers, also David Walker, ‘Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa: The Australian Years’, The Hindu, 8 August 2004. 16. ‘Sam Bahadur: A soldier’s general’, The Times of India, 27 June 2008. 17. Rajiv Gandhi was in the last year of his five-year rule in 1989 and Narasimha Rao enjoyed a full five-year stint at the South Block. The rest of the prime ministers (V. P. Singh, Chandrashekhar, I. K. Gujral, H. D. Deve Gowda and A. B Vajpayee — twice) held the office only for a few months. 18. Lydia Polygreen and Vikas Bajaj, ‘India’s Guard is up, but weaknesses remain’, The New York Times, 24 November 2009. 19. Maharashtra Government, Report of the High Level Enquiry Committee on 26/11.30, December 2008, p. 7. 20. Ratan Tata, ‘Ratan Tata planning own anti-terror machinery’, CNN-IBN, 16 December 2008, http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ratan-tata-planning-ownantiterror-machinery/80706-3.html (accessed 12 March 2012). 21. ‘Are you watching TV? Switch it on as soon as you get home. Some kind of gang war seems to have gripped Mumbai’; Kamte, To The Last Bullet, p. 4. 22. Raymond W. Kelly, Lessons from the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks, Testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, Washington DC, 8 January 2009. 23. B. Raman, ‘Jihadis Strike at Pak Army & ISI again’, South Asian Analysis Group, 25 November 2007. 24. Vishwa Mohan, ‘India asks Pakistan to hand over 2 army officers’, The Times of India, 26 February 2010.

354

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25. Supreme Court of India, Md. Ajmal Md. Amir Kasab v. State of Maharashtra, Crl. A. No. 1899–1900/2011; Patiala House Court, ‘NIA v. David Coleman Headley’, CBI/3/2011, New Delhi 2011. 26. James Jay Carafano, ‘US thwarts 19 terrorist attacks against America since 9/11’, No. 4. 27. Reuters, ‘Rewrite constitution: TTP spokesperson outlines conditions for ceasefire’, Express Tribune, 27 December 2012.

Afterword to this Edition 1. Government of Maharashtra, Report of the High-Level Enquiry Committee on 26/11, 30 December 2008, p. 77. 2 Vicky Nanjappa, ‘26/11 Mumbai Terror Attack: Modi Showed Interest but Was Browbeaten’, OneIndia, http://www.oneindia.com/ feature/26-11-terror-attack-narendra-modi-showed-intent-but-wasdiscouraged-1572981.html, 27 November 2014. 3. Cyril Almeida, ‘For Nawaz, it’s not over till it’s over’, Dawn, 12 May 2018. 4. Asad Ali Durrani, ‘19th Asian Security Conference’, Institute of Defence and Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, 6 March 2017. 5. Sessions Court of Gr. Mumbai, The State of Maharashtra v. Mohammad Ajmal Mohd. Amir Kasab, pp-1. 6. NIA, In the Court of District Judge IV-Cum-ASJ New Delhi/Special Judge (NIA) Patiala House, New Delhi, FIR No 04/2009, 11 November 2009. 7. Sections 120B, 302, 468 and 471 of the IPC were applied against the accused terrorists along with section 16, 18, 20 of the UAPA. Some of these sections are applied when minor cheating, forgery and murder are committed by small time Indian thieves. 8. Annual Report, Ministry of Home Affairs, 2009–10 to 2016–17, Government of India. 9. Data compiled from Annual Reports of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, starting from the year 2009–10 to 2016–17. 10. PTI, Modi says Pak has violated UN code, Times of India, 28 November 2008. 11. PTI, Karkare’s family declines Modi’s monetary help, Times of India, 29 November 2008. 12. Times News Network, ‘Modi wants 3-layer ring to secure coast’, Times of India, 28 November 2008. 13. PTI, ‘Narendra Modi Told Sharif Talks Will Be Lost Amid Blasts, Says Sushma’, India Today, 28 May 2014. 14. Nitin Srivastav, ‘India PM Narendra Modi presses Pakistan’s Sharif on militants’, BBC, 27 May 2014.

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15. Michael D. Shear and Adam Liptak, ‘Supreme Court Takes up Travel Ban Case, and Allows Parts to Go Ahead’, New York Times, 26 June 2017. 16. Associated Press, ‘Trump and Modi Exchange Hugs, Herald Stronger US-India Ties’, New York Times, 26 June 2017. 17. Donald J. Trump & Narendra Modi, ‘Joint Statement – United States and India: Prosperity Through Partnership’, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 27 June 2017. 18. State Department, ‘Terrorist Designations of Mohammad Yusuf Shah AKA Syed Salahuddin’, Office of the Spokesperson, Washington, 26 June 2017. 19. Indrani Bagchi, ‘Modi meets 26/11 Survivor Moshe, Offers Long-term Visa’, Times of India, 6 July 2017. 20. Vijaita Singh, ‘India Makes Fresh Bid to Get Headley, Rana’, The Hindu, 21 April 2017. 21. ‘26/11 attacks case: Mumbai court directs David Headley to appear via video-conference’, 19 November 2015, Indian Express. 22. Press Information Bureau, ‘Video Conferencing of Headley’, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, 09 March 2016. 23. Rahi Gaikwad, ‘Headley Turns Approver After Court Pardons Him’, The Hindu, 10 December 2015. 24. Gary S. Shapiro, ‘David Coleman Headley Sentenced to 35 Years in Prison for Role in India and Denmark Terror Plots’, US Department of Justice, Northern District of Illinois, 24 January 2013, pp-2. 25. Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko, The Time of Stalin: Portrait of Tyranny, Moscow: Harper & Row, 1981, pp-287. 26. Vidya, ‘8 years since 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, only 102 families compensated’, India Today, 24 November 2016. 27. Ministry of Home Affairs, Revised Guidelines Of ‘Central Scheme For Assistance To Civilians Victims / Family Of Victims Of Terrorist, Communal And Naxal Violence, Government of India, 25 January 2010. 28. Cabinet, ‘Cabinet Approves Central Scheme for Assistance to Civilian Victims of Terrorist/Communal/Left Wing Extremist Violence and Cross Border Firing and Mine/IED Blasts on Indian Territory’, Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 24 August 2016. 29. Maggie Farley, ‘More Than $38 Billion Paid to 9/11 Victims’, Los Angeles Times, 8 November 2004. 30. Mahesh C. Pednekar, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - A Case Study on Contribution of Tata Group in 26/11 Mumbai Terrorist Attack’, Variorum, Multi- Disciplinary e-Research Journal Vol.-01, Issue-IV, May 2011, pp-3–4. 31. Malik Asad & Haseeb Bhatti, ‘Lakhvi, a Free Man from Now’, Dawn, 10 April 2015.

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32. Saroj Kumar Rath, ‘Changing Track in Changing Times’, Fountain Ink, November 2016. 33. ———, ‘India Pulls out of Pakistan-hosted 19th SAARC Summit’, Dawn, 27 September 2016. 34. Jon Boone, ‘Narendra Modi Labels Pakistan ‘Mothership of Terrorism’, The Guardian, 16 October 2016. 35. Press Statement by DGMO, Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Defence, 29 September 2017. 36. M. Ramesh, ‘Was India Snubbed by Russia in Amritsar?’, Business Line, 9 December 2016. 37. Sachin Parashar, ‘Russia Throws its Weight Behind China-Pakistan Corridor, Keeps India on Tenterhooks’, Times of India, 19 December 2016. 38. Tom Phillips, ‘EU Backs Away From Trade Statement in Blow to China’s “Modern Silk Road” Plan’, The Guardian, 15 May 2017. 39. APP, ‘PM, Chief Ministers Travel to China to Attend Belt and Road Forum’, Dawn, 12 May 2017.

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Introduction Ø

373

Index Abdal, Hasan, 199 Abdullah, Maulana, 20 Abdullah, Mian, 72 Abdullah, Sheikh, 40 Abdullah, Sher-e-Kashmir Sheikh, 12 Abu Mujahid v. State of Maharashtra, 237 Acton, Lord, 6 Advani, L. K., 3 Afghani, Sajjad, 53 Afghan Taliban, 192, 256–72 during Afghan war of 1979–89, 262 and al Qaeda, 260–61 ISI–Taliban relations, 258–62 US and NATO targets, 256–57 after effects of Mumbai attacks allegations against Pakistan, 165–66, 168 capture of Kasab, 161–62 chargesheet, 165 FIRs filed, 162 forensic evidence, 163–65 and functioning of union home ministry, 185–87 fury against politicians, 181–83 Indian opinion, 180–85 international reactions, 169–72 Kasab’s confession and its im-pact, 167 Pakistan’s reaction, 172–80 phone interceptions, 166 police modernization plans, need for, 168–69 political casualty of the Mumbai attacks, 162 public perception, 183 state’s responsibilities, 185–87 Ahl-e-Hadith, 204 Ahmad, Dilshad, 77 Ahmad, Gul, 7 Ahmad, Mohammad Amir Shakeel, 251 Ahmad, Nazir, 132–34

Ahmad, Sabauddin, 128, 217–18, 220–21, 235, 238–39, 242 Ahmad, Sohaib, 132–34 Ahmad, Waqas, 198 Ahmed, Mahmood, 14, 91 Ahmed, Mustaq, 49 Ahuja, Prem, 245 Alam, Aftab, 238 Alaqama, Abu, 191 Al Badr, 84, 89, 882 al Bana, Hasan, 124 al-Baqi, Nashwan Abd al-Razzaq Abd, 86 Al Barq, 90 al-Dosari, Abdul Rehman, 75 al-Hamdi, Ibrahim Ahmed, 76 al Hooti, Abdul Aziz, 197 Ali, Abu (Javed), 132, 134, 148, 150 Ali, Major, 116, 205 Ali, Sameer, 200, 254 Al Jehad, 90 Al Kama, Abu, 254 Alkama, Abu, 127 Allen, Charles, 203 Al-Mansoorian, 212 Al-Nasaryeen, 212 al-Qaeda, 4, 8, 18, 102, 190, 192, 194, 201–02, 260–61, 271, 882 Al-Qama, Abu, 178 al-Sudais, Sheikh Abdur Rehman, 20–21 Al Umar Mujahideen (AuM), 89 al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 21, 83 Anason, Abu, 81 Anjum, Younas, 178 Ansar, Harkat-ul, 55 Ansari, Fahim Arshad Mohammad Yusuf, 128, 217–22, 235, 238–39, 242 Ansari, Syed Zabiuddin, 250 Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), 31 Armitage, Richard, 14, 55 Arms Act, 162

374

Index

Arshad, Hafiz, 132, 134 Ashok Kumar v. State of Punjab, 231 Ashraff, Haji Mohammed, 174 Aslam, Mohammad, 251 Atta, Mohammad, 54 9/11 attacks, 1–2, 5, 183 26/11 attacks; see Mumbai attacks, 2008 Auchinleck, Sir Claude John Eyre, 34 Aurora, Jagjit Singh, 44–45 Awan, Malik Mohammad Akram, 178 Azad, Sher Mohammed Khan, 49 Azad Kashmir, 10 Azhar, Masood, 53, 55, 83, 121, 234, 243 Aziz, Amir, 70–71 Aziz, Maulana Abdul, 19 Aziz, Sartaj, 61 Azmi, Shahid, 233–34 Azzam, Abdullah, 67, 85, 118, 124 Babbar, Imran, 132, 141, 202 Babri Masjid demolition, 202 Bada, Abdul Rehman, 150 Bahaziq, Mahmoud Ahmed, 174 Bali bombings, 2002, 2 Baradar, Mullah, 257 Bavdhankar, 140 Bedi, J. S., 144 Behera, Loknath, 104 Benedict, Lorenzo, 244 Beslan hostage crisis, 2004, 2 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 17 Bhuttavi, Hafiz Abdul Salam, 213–14 Bhutto, Benazir, 6, 14, 45, 51, 68, 80 Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 12, 40–41, 45–46, 99 Blood, Archer, 44–45 bomb detonation pattern, 3 boundaries of India and frontier fights with Bangladesh, 30 battles fought, 31 with Bhutan, 30 with China, 30 China–Burma–India trijunction issue, 38 creation of Bangladesh, 43–47 Himalayan range, 28–29 Hindukush mountains, 28 Indo-China fight, 35–40 Indo-Pak fight, 1947, 32–35

Indo-Pak fight, 1965, 40–42 Indo-Pak fight, 1971, 43–47 Karakoram Pass, 30 Kargil war, 50–52 Kashmir and Lhasa agreement of 1842, 36 Kashmir issue, 31–32 Khyber and Bolan passes, 28 Kongka Pass, 37 land dispute, 30 line of demarcation, ancient times, 28 McMahon Line, 36, 39 with Myanmar, 30 with Nepal, 30 ‘Operation Gibraltar,’ 41 ‘Operation Grand Slam,’ 41 Operation Parakram, 57–61 with Pakistan, 30 ‘Seventeen Point Agreement’ with China, 37 Silk Route, 29–30 Tashkent agreement, 42 treaty with rulers of Laddakh and Tibet, 36 uprising in Kashmir, 1990s, 47–50 US interventions, 42 Brigitte, Willie, 77, 80–81 Brinkley, Robert, 170 Budhwar, Fateh Chand, 131 Bush, George, 5, 15, 60, 183 Camp Tango training, 66 Cariappa, Kodandera Madappa, 265 Chabad House, 141 Chaklala cantonment, 15 Chaman & Anr v. State of Uttaranchal, 231 Charles II, 130 Chavan, Prithviraj, 214 Chhota, Abdul Rehman (Sakib), 157 Chidambaram, P., 106, 162, 228–29 Choudhary, Iqbal, 200 CIA, 66 Clapper Jr., James R., 106 Clinton, Bill, 13, 48, 51, 85 Clinton, Hillary, 105, 197, 213 Cohen, Stephan, 18

Index ‘Cold-Start’ doctrine, 210 Coy, Zarra, 190 Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 162 cross-border terrorism, 18, 188 Cunningham, Sir George, 33 Customs Act, 162 Dalai Lama (H. H.), 36 Darul Uloom Falah-e-Darain, 251 Daura-e-Khasa, 100 David, Raymond, 78 D-Company, 206 Deshmukh, Vilasrao, 143, 183, 267 Deshpande, Swati, 237 Dhurgude, Baburao, 138 Dixit, J. N., 54 Dogar, A. K., 178–79 Doraiswamy, K., 49 Doval, Ajit, 53 Dukhtareen-e-Millat (DeM), 89 Dukhtareen-e-Taiba, 207 Durrani, Mahmud, 173 Ejaz-ul-Haq, 20 En-lai, Chou, 36, 40, 44 Explosives Substances Act, 162 Fahadullah, 132, 157 Fair, Christian, 97 Falah-e Insaniyat Foundation, 212 Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, 72 Farris, Abu, 197 Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), 84 Feierstein, Gerald, 173 female terrorists, 207 Fernandes, George, 55, 60 Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Panchsheel), 35–36 Gafoor, Hasan, 143, 151–53, 184, 215 Gandhi, Indira, 44, 46, 265–66 Gandhi, Rajiv, 23 Gandhi, Sonia, 23, 173 Ganesh, N., 224 Garg, S. P., 229 Gates, Robert, 62, 103 Gavriel, Rabbi, 141–42

375

Gavriel, Rivke, 141–42, 147 Gerdi Jangal Regional Military Shura, 89 German Bakery explosion in Pune, 96–97 Ghazi, Abdul Rasheed, 21 Gilani, Daood Syed; see Headley, David Coleman Gilani, Pir Sayed Ahmad, 64 Gilani, Shazia, 117 Gilani, Syed Salim, 98 Gilani, Yousuf Raza, 210 Gopal, Anand, 111 Govilkar, Sanjay, 139 Gracey, Gen. Sir Douglas, 34 Gul, Hameed, 87, 260 Gupta, Madhukar, 143 Guru, Afzal, 56–57 Guru, Shaukat Hussein, 56 Habibullah, Wajahat, 58 Haji, Brigadier, 81 Hamdan, Salim Ahmad, 247 Hamza, Abu, 127, 135, 201 Haq, Zia-ul, 20, 99 Haqqani, Hussain, 85 Haqqani Network, 192 Haqqani network, 92 Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami, 64 Harkar-ul-Mujahideen, 67 Harkat-ul-Ansar, 67 Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islamic, 67 Harkat-ul Jihad-ul Islami (HuJI), 22 Harkat-ul Mujahideen, 48, 80 Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, 52 Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Al-Alami (HuMA), 90 Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), 243 Haroon, Major, 120, 127, 190, 200, 204 Hashim, Abdur Rehman, 24–25, 96, 110–11, 118, 120, 127, 190, 200, 204, 248 Headley’s meeting with, 25 Hassan, Abu Amr Abd al-Hakim (Sheikh Essa), 19 Hayat, Sardar Sikandar, 71 Headley, David Coleman, 24, 81, 85, 95, 198–99, 204, 213, 229, 232, 237, 244 conviction, 99 and DEA, 99–100

376

Index

and Denmark attack, 103 as a drug dealer, 99 Indian interrogation of, 106–07 India’s demand for extradition of, 108 Karachi Project, 109–13 Mumbai attacks, role in, 95–97 Mumbai attacks plan, 113–22 original name, 98 schooling, 98–99 ties between Pakistani drug organizations and, 99 training in terrorism, 100–01 trips to Mumbai as part of planning, 117–18 warnings about, 100, 102 Headley, Sherrill, 98 Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin, 7, 64, 264 Hezbi-Islami, 64 Hezb-i-Islami, 64 The Himalayan Letters of Gypsy Dave and Lady Ba, 30 Hizb-e-Islami, 48 Hizb-ul Mujahideen, 48 Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, 7, 67 HM, 89, 882 Holbrooke, Richard, 177, 257 Holder, Eric, 105, 228 Holy Battle of Badr, 243 Hooda, R. K., 143 HuA, 89 Hui, Liou Zhao, 170 HuJI, 83, 89, 121, 882 HuM, 84, 89, 882 Hussain, Riazat, 42 Hussaini, Abdullah, 86 Hussein, Saddam, 250 Ibn-e-Tayamiah, 125 Ibrahim, Dawood, 49–50, 112, 206 Idara Khidmat-e-Khalaq (IKK), 71 Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq, 212 Improvised Explosive Device (IED), 147 Imtiaz, Nahida, 49 India and 9/11 attacks, 17 friendship negotiation with Pakistan, 23

intrusion of armed militants, 3 ISI campaigns against, 23–24 Kargil war, 23–24 opening of embassies in Afghanistan, 19 pattern of terrorism, 3 post-11 September era, 18 serial blasts in Mumbai in 2006, 23 Shimla agreeement and, 13 Indian Penal Code (IPC), 162 Indo-Pak war, 9–10 1971, 10 Indo-Soviet treaty, 45 insurgency, 7 International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), 224 Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, 4 In the Line of Fire, 52 Iqbal, Zafar, 65, 73, 118–19, 198, 200, 213–14, 248 Iraqi mujahideen, 78 ISI, 269–70 ‘Forward Section 23,’ 109 India-centric plan, 112 ‘Nepal set-up,’ 113 policy of supporting militant, 87 S-Wing of, 263 Taliban relations, 258–62 ISI campaigns against India, 193–94 car bomb attack, 2001, 54–55 Headley-Iqbal comradeship, 116 hijacking policy, 47–48, 52–54 intelligence failures, 41–42 involvement in training Kashmiri insurgents, 48 joint JeM–ISI operation, 60 joint LeT–ISI operation, 78–81 Kandahar incident, 52–54 Karachi Project, 109–13 Kargil war, 23–24, 50–62 Kashmir insurgency, 67 kidnapping of Rubaiya Saeed, 49 parliament attack, 61 serial blasts in Mumbai in 2006, 23 uprising in Kashmir, 1990s, 47–50 Ittehad-e-Islami, 64–65 Iyer, Krishna, 240

Index Jaan-e-Fidai, 125 Jabha-i-Nijat-Milli, 64, 89 Jadhav, Naik Arun, 137–140 Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), 6, 22, 53–54, 56, 83, 121, 172, 243, 882 Jaitley, Arun, 58 Jalal, Ayesha, 71, 259 Jamaat-e-Islami, 6–7, 48, 64 Jamaat-ulDawa (JuD), 174–75 Jamaat-ul-Fuqra, 90 Jamaat-ul Furqaan, 22 Jamait-ul-Mujahideen (JuM), 89 Jamatud Dawa (JuD), 69–70, 207, 212–13 Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, 65 Jammat-ul-Ulema-i-Islamiin, 48 Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), 3 Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), 48–49, 57, 79 Jammu and Kashmir Student Libera-tion Front (JKSLF), 49 jihadis, motivating factors for, 122 Jinnah, Mohammad Ali, 10, 12, 34–35, 43, 240 Johnson, Lyndon, 42 Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE), 223–24, 230–31 Jundal, Abu, 239, 250–55 Jund-ul-Fida, 111, 192 Kadamwas, Nivruti Tukaram, 166 Kagzi, Zulfikar Fayyaz, 251 Kahafa, Abu, 254 Kahfa, Abu, 127–28 Kak, Ramchandra, 33 Kakde, Niten, 148 Kalven Junior, Harry, 245 Kamte, Ashok, 136, 138, 268 Kamte, Vinita, 136 Kandahar hijacking of 1999, 48 Kanwal, Major, 155 Karachi Project, 8, 18, 22, 193, 209 Kargil war, 50–62, 207 Karkare, Hemant, 136–37, 142, 214 Karzai, Hamid, 257 Kasab, Ajmal, 100, 104, 122–29, 132, 135–36, 138–40, 167, 205, 232–33 appeals against death sentence, 237–43

377

Bombay High Court judgement, 235–37 Daura-e-Ama training, 126 Daura-e-Khasaka Rukka, 126 Daura-e-Ribat, 127–29 Daura-e-Sufa Markas Taiba Muridke, 125–26 debate over identity, 175–76 denial for legal aid by Pakistan, 177 in India, 131–32 plea for a lawyer, 234 prosecution and, 232–35 ‘Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy’, 48 Kashmir division, India v. Pakistan, 10–12 Kashmiri, Ilyas, 24, 96, 102, 110, 121–22, 190 Kashmir liberation plan, 115–16, 202 Kashmir-oriented militants, 6 Kasuri, Khurshid Mahmud, 23 Kaul, B. M., 39 Kaur, Ravinder, 57 Kayani, Ashfaq Pervez, 22, 170, 194, 201, 207, 210, 260, 271 Kayanihas, Pervez Asfaq, 91 Keating, Kenneth, 45 Khalid, Abu, 76 Khalil, Fazlur Rehman, 20–21 Khalis, Maulavi Younas, 64 Khan, A. Q., 91 Khan, Altan, 37 Khan, Ayub, 9, 12, 40, 42 Khan, Aziz Ahmed, 70 Khan, Ismail, 132, 135–36, 139–40, 167 Khan, Liaqat Ali, 34 Khan, Sardar Mohammad Anwer, 71 Khan, Shamsher, 252 Khan, Sohail Warraich, 52 Khan, Yahya, 12, 43–45 Khar, Hina Rabbani, 91 Kherlanji Massacre of Dalits, 227 Khili, Zhawar, 7 Khosa, Latif, 178 Khrushchev, Nikita, 38 Khurram, Captain, 111, 119–20, 127, 190, 194, 200, 204 Khuruj (revolt), 120 Khwaja, Jawad S., 179

378

Index

Koelbl, Susanne, 168 Koli fishing community, 130 Kripalani, J. B., 37–38 Krishnan, Dayan, 105 Kumar, Gulshan, 227 Laden, Osama bin, 4, 55, 65, 86, 111, 191, 249–50 Ladwig III, Walter C., 58 Lakhvi, Zaki-ur Rehman, 25, 64–66, 118, 127–28, 174, 178, 190–93, 201–02, 205, 207, 220, 254 Lakhvi, Zaki-ur-Rehman, 120, 124, 178, 180 Lal Masjid operation, 20–21 Lamb, Alistair, 48 Lashkar-e-Jabbar (LeJ), 84, 89 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, 882 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), 22 Lashkar-e-Omar (LeO), 89 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), 1, 6, 8, 48, 57, 89, 92, 104, 112, 202–14 in Afghan war, 65–66 Ahe-e-Hadith adherence, 82 Ajmal Kasab’s story, 122–29 al Qaeda link, 85–87 attrition of, 191–93 campus in Muridke, 119 different names, 212 female terrorists, 207 fight against the NATO, 190–91 as a foreign terrorist organization, 101, 211–12 founders, 73 Gul’s relations with, 87 Haroon’s association with, 120 Hashim in, 111 image in the eyes of Pakistanis, 70–71 against India, 203–04 Indian Parliament attack, 2001, 68 international operations, 74–78 ISI connection, 78–81, 90, 202 ISI’s supporting role in facilitating funding, 196–97 jihadi network of, 82 during Kargil war, 50–62, 207 in Kashmir, 67–68

Kashmir liberation plan, 115–16 killing of Hindus at Barshalla, 68 Lal Masjid operation, 83 LeT/JuD charity Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, 72 Markaz Dawa-ul-Irshad (MDI) and, 64–67 Mumbai attacks plan, 113–22, 125 networking in India, 205–06 network in Gulf, 197–98 objectives of, 209–12 opposition to US, 203 origin and initial functioning of, 64–65 Pakistani army, relation with, 78–81 political, economic and social role, 69–74 profile of cadres, 73–74 as a prototype of a government in Pakistan, 73 recruitment and indoctrination system, 64, 123–25 relief works, 71–72 Shia pilgrims of Kabul, attack on, 89 split between the ISI and, 119–22 suicide squad, 125 Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, relation with, 81–85 terrorist attacks, 1993, 68 three-sided relations with militant groups, 89–92 training camps in Afghanistan, 66 use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), 160 US pressure on, 213 wars in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and Iraq, 74–75 Leahy, Patrick J., 103 Levy, Adrian, 80 Lodhi, Faheem, 77 London serial bombings, 2005, 2 Madrid bombings, 2002, 2 Mahajan, Pramod, 227 Mahale, Ramesh, 180 Mahaz-e-Azadi, 90 Mahaz-i-Milli Islam, 64 Majid, Sajid, 25, 111, 191

Index Makki, Abdur Rehman, 75 Makki, Hafiz Abdul Rehman, 209 Malegaon blast case, 242 Malik, Rehman, 177–78, 180, 198 Mallik, Yasin, 57 Manekshaw, Sam, 44, 265 MARCOS, 144–45, 154 Marde, Prashant, 221 Maria, Rakesh, 136, 143, 151 Markaz-al-Dawa-Wal-Irshad, 65 Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad, 78 Maududi, Maulana Abul Ala, 7, 124 Md. Ajmal Md. Amir Kasab v. State of Maharashtra, 270 Meer, Sajid, 255 Mehsud, Hakimullah, 271 Mehta, Sureesh, 182 Memon, Tiger, 50, 112 Menon, Shiv Shankar, 79, 172 Menon, V. K. Krishna, 34, 38 Messervy, Sir Frank Walter, 34 MI5, 95 MI-422, 116 Micky Mouse Project, 209 Miliband, David, 170 militant organizations of Pakistan Afghanistan-oriented terror groups, 89 domestically oriented militants, 90 global terror groups, 89 India- and Kashmir-oriented Militants, 89 nondescript militant groups, 90–92 sectarian groups, 89–90 Military Intelligence (MI), 6 Mir, Sajid, 75 Miramshah Regional Military Shura, 89 Mirza, Iskandar, 40 Mishra, Brajesh, 52–53, 60 Modi, Narendra, 252 Mohammadi, Mohammad Nabi, 65 Mohite, Raju, 221 Mojadidi, Sibgratullah, 64 Mokashi, 233 Mokashi, R. B., 222 Moscow hostage crisis, 2002, 2 Moshe, 145

379

motive for Mumbai attacks attrition of LeT, 191 to boost morale of Pakistani military, 196 insurgency issue, 196 for ISI in aiding, 193–94 Kashmir issue, 189 NIA document, 189–90 of Pakistani civilian leadership, 194–95 of Pakistani mujahideens, 193–94 Tahilyani’s findings, 189 Mountbatten, Lord, 34 Muaskar-e-Aqsa, 66 Muaskar-e-Taiba, 66 Mueller, Robert, 228 Mujahid, Yahya, 208 Mulford, David, 175, 179 Mulk, Nasirul, 179 mullah-military combine, 10 Mullen, Mike, 78, 176, 263 Mumbai Bori Bunder station, 131 Budhwar Park fishing colony, 131 Colaba Causeway, 131 colonial era, 130–31 1993 serial blasts, 61 Mumbai attacks, 2008, 1–2, 80, 132, 266–68 aftermath of. see after effects of Mumbai attacks Australian reaction, 171 British government’s reactions, 169–70 Budhwar Park fishing colony, scuffle at, 131–32 casualties, 2 Chinese stand, 170–71 CST attacks, 134–40 financiers, 196–99 French reaction, 171 Headley’s role in, 95–97 India–US tussle following Headley’s arrest, 96–97, 103–08 ISI’s involvement in, 168 Leopold Café, 132–34 Menon-Boucher meeting, 172 Nariman House attack, 141–42, 160

380

Index

NSG operations, 147, 154–56, 158–61, 166–67 Oberoi/Trident attacks, 157–60 official imbroglio, 142–45 plan, 113–22 preparation for, 93–96 Quick Reaction Team (QRT), 151, 153 RDX-laden IED, 134, 141, 157–58, 240–41 rescue operation, 145–47 state actors, 199–202 sufferings, 2 Taj Hotel attack and Indian counter attack, 148–57 US reaction, 171–72 Mumbai terrorism, 91 Musharraf, Pervez, 5, 14–15, 51–52, 60, 80, 85 Muslim Janbaz Force, 90 Muslim United Army, 90 Mutawakil, Wakil Ahmad, 54 Muzammil, 254 Muzzammil alias Yusuf, 127 Nadeem Commando, 90 Naidu, Sarojini, 240 Nalavade, T. V., 215 Nanavati, Kawas, 245–46 Naqvi, Ezaj, 233 Narayanan, M. K., 171 Nariman, Fali S., 236, 240 Nariman, Rohinton, 238 Nasir, Javed, 48, 132 National Awami League (NAL), 43 National Database and Registration Authority (NDRA), 177 National Investigation Agency Bill 2008, 184 Nawaz, Sarfaraz, 197 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 36, 38–39, 265 Nehru, R. K., 38 NIA v. David Coleman Headley, 270 Niazi, A. K. A., 45 Nikam, Deorao, 227 Nikam, Ujjwal, 224–25, 227–28, 236–37 Nixon, Richard, 44–45 Noel-Baker, Philip, 35

non-state actors and terrorism, 264–65 Noon, Sir Feroze Khan, 40 North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), 36 Northern Areas, 10 North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), 7 Obama, Barack, 94, 97, 104, 107, 177 Omar, Mullah, 4, 54, 191 Omble, Tukaram, 140 Operation Black Medallion, 95 Operation High Rise, 94 Outalha, Faiza, 117 Paasbaan-e-Ahle-Hadith, 212 Paasban-e-Kashmir, 212 Padmanabhan, S., 59, 61 Pakistan, 3 Afghan policy, 15–16 army’s doctrine on national security, 5 and 9/11 attacks, 14–15 cross-border terrorism against India, 188 double game, 5 friendship negotiation with India, 23 ISI generals v. Musharaf, 21–22 ‘Islamization’ policies, 16 Lal Masjid operation, 21–22 militant activities against, 18 Operation Silence, 21 post-11 September era, US pressure, 18 Shimla agreeement and, 13 ‘snatch Kashmir’ plan, 13 ‘strategic depth’ policy in Afghanistan, 79 Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), 11 Pakistan-sponsored suicide terrorist mission, 3 Pakistan-sponsored suicide terrorist mission in India, 3 Panchayat system, 245 Pares, Shimon, 17 Pasha, Ahmed Shuja, 168, 170, 201–02 Pasha, Shuja, 81 Patel, Vallabhbhai, 33

Index Pathak, Jai Sheel, 218 Patil, R. R., 142–143, 183 Patil, Shivraj, 143, 162, 167, 267 Patil, Vishwas Nagre, 142, 152 Patil, Vishwas Nangre, 149–51 Patterson, Anne, 80, 171 Pawar, K. P., 233 People’s League, 90 Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (PISCES), 253 Peshawar Regional Military Shura, 89 Peters, Victoria, 247 Petraeus, David, 109 Phad, Maruti, 138 PNS Mehran naval base, 87–88 Popular Front for Armed Resistance, 90 Powell, Colin, 15, 55, 59 Prevention of Terrorists and Dis-ruptive Activities Act (POTA), 56 prosecution of perpetrators acquittal of co-accused, 220–23 appeals against death sentence of Kasab, 237–43 Bombay High Court judgment, 235–37 chargesheet under IPC and CrPC, 215–16 and collective myopia, 230 Indian Muslims and, 242 initial probing, 215–16 NIA’s investigation, 237 observation on conduct of TV channels during attacks, 241 prosecution’s story about Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmad, 217–20 Rana’s acquittal, 243–50 special public prosecutor, 223–32 trial, 216–20 truth, 232–35 Prosecutor v. Radoslav Branin, 224 Qahafa, Abu, 191 Qayyum, Abdul, 33 Quereshi, Shah Mehmood, 195 Quetta Regional Military Shura, 89

381

Quetta Shura, 89 Qureshi, Shah Mehmood, 23, 173, 176 R. Sarala v. T. S. Velu, 226 Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 64 Radcliffe, Cyril, 10 Rafique, Shahid, 180 Raj, 133–134 Ralah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, 72 Rana, Tahawwur Hussain, 24, 85–86, 95–96, 99, 101, 107, 115, 199, 204, 239, 243–50 Rao, P. V. Narasimha, 49 Raphael, Robin, 48 Rashid, Ahmad, 87 Rathee, B. S., 159 Rauf, Hafiz Abdur, 72 RDX-laden IED, 134, 141, 157–58, 240–41 Reagan, Ronald, 66 Rediff.com, 224 Rehan, 254 Rehman, Abdullah, 132 Rehman, Akhtar Abdul, 6 Rehman, Sheikh Mujibur, 43–45 Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), 44 Riaz, Shahid Jameel, 81, 178 Rice, Condoleezza, 173–74 Roemer, Timothy, 228 Rosenberg, Rabbi Shimon, 145 Roy, A. N., 142–43 Royer, Randall Todd, 76 Sachar Committee report, 202 Sadiq, Hammad Amin, 178 Sadruddin, Maulana, 6 Saeed, Abu Umer, 127 Saeed, Hafiz Mohammad, 57, 65, 71, 73, 81, 118, 127, 179, 190–91, 205, 207–08, 213, 239 Saeed, Mufti Mohammed, 49 Saeed, Rubaiya, 49 Salafis, 82 Salahuddin, Syed, 83 Salaskar, Vijay, 137 Samas, Abu, 191 Samjhauta Express blast case, 242 Samuel, Sandra, 141, 145

382

Index

Sanger, David E., 60 Sardana, Mohammad Latif, 251 Sareehi, Abu Abdur Rehman, 65, 67 Saud, Jamia Malik, 66 Saxena, Vivek, 222 Sayaf, Abdul Rasul, 64 Sayyaf, Abdur Rab Rasul, 65 Scott-Clark, Catherine, 80 Second World War, 2 Sepah-e-Sahiba Pakistan, 882 Shafik-ur-Rehman, 75 Shah, Niyamat, 25 Shah, Saurav, 159 Shah, Zarar, 128, 174, 178, 201 Shahdullah, 202 Shaheed, Markaz Faiz Mohammed, 7 Shahzad, Faisal, 21 Shahzad, Syed Saleem, 190, 261 Shahzad, Syed Salem, 109 Shalivahana, 28 Shao-chi, Liu, 38 Sharif, Nawaz, 13, 22, 50–52, 85, 176, 272 Sharif, Shabbaz, 175 Sharma, R. K., 144 Shastri, Lal Bahadur, 12, 40, 42 Sheikh, Nooruddin (Naruddin), 220–21 Sheikh, Omar, 53–54, 176 Sheikh, Rahil Abdul Rehman, 251–52 Shekhar, Chandra, 49 Shemtov, Rabbi Levi, 142 Sheoran, Sunil, 144, 156 Shimla agreement, 12–13, 46, 51 Shin Bet, 146 Shinde, Sushil Kumar, 272 Shoaib, Abu, 100 Shukla, Madhumita, 105 Sibal, Kapil, 238 Siddiqua, Ayasha, 259 Singh, Bharat, 158 Singh, Digvijay, 184 Singh, Havildar Gajender, 147 Singh, Jaswant, 53, 57 Singh, Maharaja Hari, 33–34 Singh, Manmohan, 23, 104, 107, 110, 173, 194 Singh, M. N., 136 Singh, Natwar, 22 Singh, V. P., 49

Sino-US friendship treaty, 44 Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan (SMP), 89–90 Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), 22 Siraj, Major, 116 Sir Creek, 31–32 Soz, Saifuddin, 49 Staines, Graham, 105 State of Maharashtra v. Fahim Harshad Mohammad Yusuf Ansari & another, 238 ‘strategic depth’ policy, 16 Strategic Partnership Agreement, 2012, 264 Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), 198, 206 Subramanium, Gopal, 105–06, 108, 238 Sundarrajan Doctrine, 58 Swami, Praveen, 59 Swami, Praveen, 64 Swift, Charles, 115, 247–48 Sylvia, 245 Tahilyani, M. L., 189, 215, 217, 223, 227, 231 Taizong, Emperor Tang, 30 Taj Hotel, 148–49, 240, 268 Taliban militants in Kabul, 4 Taya, Justice, 223–26 Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool, 212 Tehreek-e-Jaferia Pakistan (TJP), 89 Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-eMohammadi (TNSM), 90 Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, 89, 92 LeT, relation with, 81–85 Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), 22, 84, 191–92, 271, 882 Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen, 89–90 terrorism in South Asia, 15 Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), 50 terrorist organizations, recruitment to, 123–24 Thakur, Bharat, 220–21 Thapa, Somnath Kakaram, 49 Thimayya, K. S., 37 Todd, Malcolm, 130 Track II diplomacy, 23

Index Tse-tung, Mao, 44 Tyagi, Mahavir, 38 Umer, Abu, 141, 148 Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 162, 184 Unnikrishnan, K., 155 Unnikrishnan, Sandeep, 155–57 US American jury system, 245 disappointment at jury’s decision on Mumbai attacks’ charge, 249–50 FBI implication of Rana for conspiracy, 244–45, 247–48 implications against Headley, 247–48 India–US tussle following Headley’s arrest, 96–97, 103–08 interventions in boundaries of India and frontier fights, 42 LeT opposition to, 203 against Pakistan, 257 pressure on LeT, 213 reaction to Mumbai attacks, 2008, 171–72 Taliban–al Qaeda-led fight against, 20 war on terror, 271 USA v. Randall Todd Royer, 232 Usmani, Maulana Mufti Taqi, 20 Usmani, Mohammad Akhtar, 54 US–North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 4

383

Vajpayee, Atal Bihari, 5, 13, 22, 51, 56, 60 Vardhana, King Harsha, 29 Varma, Ram Gopal, 183 Vij, N. C., 18 Vikramaditya, King, 28 Viswanath, P. V., 142 Waghule, R. V. Sawant, 180 Wajahad, Major, 81 Waleed, Khalid, 213 Walker, Sir Michael, 170 war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 4–5 West Bengal, 3 Willard, Robert, 212 Wilson, Harold, 41 Xuanzang, 29 Yadav, Havildar Sunil Kumar, 156 Yaqoob, Abu, 111 Yaqub, 191 Yasmin, 228 Yehudit, 145 Zaki-ur-Rehman, 81 Zarar, Abu, 254 Zardari, Asif Ali, 85, 170, 173, 175, 177, 194–95, 263 Zargar, Mustaq Ahmed, 53, 234 Zazi, Najibullah, 94–95 Zedong, Mao, 37 Zeisel, Hans, 245 Zia-ul-Haq, General, 6