Dossier — Mumbai terrorist attacks

I A Khanzada

The need to pen down these lines arose only because of some gross discrepancies in the Indian Dossier titled “Mumbai Terrorist Attacks (November 26-29, 2009)” handed over by Indian High Commissioner Satya Pal to Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir on January 5, 2009, providing well-concocted evidences on alleged involvement of Pakistanis in Mumbai attacks that killed 179 people and demanding that those responsible be tried in Indian courts. Although India is known to have a history of blaming Pakistan and ISI for the smallest of occurrences in India, but distorting of facts to an extent to appear itself as aggrieved party may not go well with its international commitment in the fight against war on terrorism. While I am not a partisan of any side, justice demands that Pakistan be defended, more so because Pakistan is a country that has remained frontline state in GWOT since 2001. Pakistan is fighting the global war on terrorism not only in support of U.S. goals but also for Pakistan’s national interest and is determined to clean up its tribal areas before the trouble “spills over” into the settled areas. In a bid to defeat the scourge of terrorism, India and Pakistan also need to work together to bring the Mumbai attackers to justice.

The 69-page Indian dossier provided to Pakistan as evidence consists of three sections. The first section Evidence-I, narrated a story consisted of what it describes as the confession of a surviving gunman Ajmal Kasab who is in confinement under Indian intelligence agencies and data from satellite telephones used by the attackers. The evidence consisted of journey/sea voyage by the Mumbai attackers, involvement of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the Mumbai terror attacks, recovery of arms and other articles bearing the inscription “Made in Pakistan”, details of terrorist attacks on 5 selected targets in the Indian financial hub, telephonic conversations/selected transcripts exchange between the attackers in Mumbai and their handlers. Evidence-II of the dossier, lamented the contradictory nature of the Pakistani response to the Mumbai attacks, expecting Islamabad to respond expeditiously based on their lobe-sided findings. It also pointed out Islamabad’s failure to act to Indian requests for cooperation when evidence was provided in the past about terrorist acts, and an outline of Pakistani bilateral and international commitments and obligations to take the terrorists to task. The Evidence-III of the dossier contains an outline of what the Indian government expects Islamabad to do in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks.

In nutshell, the Indian dossier provided to Pakistan as evidence of the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s role in the Mumbai terror attacks urged: (1) Islamabad to hand over the conspirators to face justice in India. (2) To dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan. (3) To prevent further terrorist attacks from the Pakistani soil and (4) To adhere to all bilateral, multilateral and international obligations to take the Mumbai attackers to task.

After going through the “dossier” seen at: http://www.hindu.com/nic/dossier.htm, some glaring discrepancies were discerned in the dossier of evidences which need to be answered. Some of them are as appended follows: Why Kasab was chosen amongst all the 10’s?: The first significant discrepancy was revealed on page 1-3 (para ‘6-10’) of the Indian dossier wherein it was stated “Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab. He is the son of Mohammad Amir Kasab resident of Village Faridkot, District Okara in the province of Punjab in Pakistan. He has stated that along with many others, including the nine terrorists who were killed, he was trained at Laskhar-e-Taiba training camps located at Muridke, Mansehra and Muzaffarabad.” The whole story hinges on the testimonial evidence of Ajmal Kasab – the sole surviving terrorist. The linking of Ajmal Kasab to Pakistan is an insufficient basis on which to launch investigations into his nationality and his alleged links to the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Therefore, confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab evoked under torture by the investigation agencies has no legal status. What about the rest of the nine terrorists killed during Mumbai attack?

Interestingly, there is no mention of their residences in Pakistan or their real identities, no forensic evidence & DNA tests provided, no picture of remaining 9 terrorists mentioned at para 10 of the dossier. Why only Kasab’s residence in Pakistan is focused, because he has to be a Pakistani citizen for India’s story to be true. The point is: Can a Pakistani be brought to play a role? How can Pakistan verify how Kasab reached Mumbai? Why India does not invite Pakistani investigators to quiz Kasab? There are lots of questions to be answered as the Indian dossier is inconclusive. Journey of the Terrorists to Mumbai: Another glaring discrepancy manifested on page 4-5, (para 17-19) of the dossier, was the hilarious sea-voyage chronicle of the 10 terrorists from Karachi to Mumbai. In the dossier, India says, “The terrorists started in a small boat from Karachi at approx 0800 hrs on November 22, 2008…shifted to a larger boat, “al-Husseini”, which, according to the captured terrorist, belongs to Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, chief commander of the LeT……” . The team of 10 terrorists set-off in a small boat from Karachi at 0800 on Nov 22, and reaching Mumbai at 2030 hours on November 26, 2008, crossed 550 miles in a boat defeating round the clock surveillance on the way. Now, this Herculean task demands extraordinary efforts and perseverance, motivation and stamina to endure the rigours of the travel for those 10 people who might have seen the sea for the first time in their life. The New Delhi estimation of “terrorist’s extensive and visible training, operational infrastructure and meticulous planning and execution of attacks in Mumbai, can only happen with the complicity of Pakistan”, are just hypothetical supposition. Why terrorists used IEDs to kill just Taxi drivers?Vide page 5 of the dossier (para 20), IED devices were planted in two taxis ….killing the two Taxi drivers. Now it is interesting that why would they use their IED just to kill two taxi drivers? If they had disembarked from the taxis, then why blow them off later? They could have easily used pistol to do the job. If the mission of these men was to attack important buildings/hotels, then why risk killing two taxi drivers using high explosive IED”? This could have alarmed the police and authorities nearby. There is gross discrepancy in the narrative which does not make sense. There are many missing links in the dossier which need to be abridged before taking any appropriate action. The dossier requires more elaborations on how they proceeded from coast to road to get taxis.

CST Railway Station: Another controversial scene is fabricated at CST railway station where the terrorists kill or wound hundreds and then simply walk away on foot, without visualizing how much ammunition is used to kill 58 people and injure 104 people. Then, how Constable Arun Jahav (mentioned in paragraph 22) was able to survive? What were the inner motives of the originators of the dossier to let the policeman live to become a witness later. According to paragraph 23, both were loaded very heavily with arms and ammunition even after horrible killing at station and they still had plenty of weapons but question is how they were able to kill everyone in their way and kept running while carrying all this ammunition?

Targets at Leopard Café & Bar, Taj Mahal Hotel, Oberoi-Trident Hotel - Security Lapses. How the terrorists full of arms were on a firing spree to reach hotel lobby of Taj Mahal Hotel, Oberoi-Trident Hotel without being checked? It forces us to think that security at entrances was deliberately compromised for the terrorists. Moreover, all this was happening in the wake of American warning about a possible attack on Mumbai from seaward. The Terrorists get into the leopard Café & Bar, Taj Mahal Hotel, Trident Hotel while holding guns in hands and having loads of arms on shoulders and start firing and then move away half a KM to repeat the same massacre on two additional targets and no one checks them. Page 7 (para 27), of the dossier says “some of these events have been captured in the CCTV cameras installed in the hotel”. Why these CCTV footage captured by cameras installed in hotel have not been released by the Indian authorities? Moreover, the terrorists were roaming around in the walkways of these hotels and yet CCTV could not capture any glimpse of the remaining 9 terrorists. Telecommunication with the Controllers: The dossier says (para 41 of page 9), “through out the operations, the terrorists received instructions over telephone from their controllers.

The controllers warned the terrorists about the use of helicopters and about the landing of commandos on the terrace”. It is impossible to verify this part of dossier as the sole living witness Ajmal Kasab was not one amongst the team detailed to raid Chabad House. There is an evidence discrepancy in establishing that the terrorists were receiving instructions from their controllers.

Pakistan Made Weapons & Materials:The Indian dossier reports: “Each man carried a weapons pack: a Kalashnikov, a 9-millimeter pistol, ammunition, hand grenades and a bomb containing a military-grade explosive, steel ball bearings and a timer with instructions inscribed in Urdu”. The discrepancy exists that if the operation is conducted by ISI, why would the planners give Pakistani weapons and grenades to the militants especially when foreign equipment is available in abundance in the market? By closely looking at the dossier, it seems that a trail of evidences was deliberately left behind to provide a lead towards LeT/Pakistan/ISI. Pakistan Made Items: The dossier includes pictures of materials found on the fishing trawler: a bottle of Mountain Dew packaged in Karachi, diamond-brand pistols that bore the markings of a gun manufacturer in Peshawar, Pakistani-made matchbox, dried milk powder packet (Nestle), Sogo spray paint, detergent powder, and tubes of Medicam toothpaste and Touch Me shaving cream and T-shirts bearing the tag of ‘Made in Pakistan’. Would ISI send 10 terrorists to Mumbai in a boat with these toiletries which can be bought from anywhere in the open market? In fact, it is the most convenient available material to be planted as evidence to prove the complicity of Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks.