Manas Dasgupta / Vinayak Barot
NEW DELHI, Nov 26: As the world mourned the death of the 170 victims of the brutal 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai on its 12th anniversary on Thursday and the prime minister Narendra Modi reminded that India will never forget the tragic day, the Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the political front of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) responsible for the brutal strikes, organized special prayer meetings, apparently with approval from the Pakistani government, for the 10 killed terrorists who carried out the terror attacks.
According to intelligence reports, special prayer meetings were held in all LeT/JuD mosques to remember those who carried out the 2008 strikes targeting multiple locations in Mumbai that killed 170 people, including the four sailors in the trawler ‘MV Kuber’ which was highjacked in the deep seas for the terrorists to reach Mumbai. The prayer meetings were to mourn the deaths of the nine LeT gunmen killed by Indian security forces while one, Ajmal Kasab, was hanged to death after due process of law on November 21, 2012. In addition, the JuD at the behest of Pakistani authorities has also floated the JK United Youth Movement (JKYM), a political forum to provide support to separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir
Expressing his deep anguish and sorrow on the 12th anniversary of the tragic incident, Modi said India was tackling terror attacks with new policy and process, an oblique reference to the 2016 surgical strike and the 2019 air strikes in Pakistan that demonstrated India’s hardened military stance to the world.
Branding Pakistan the “perpetrator of the Mumbai terror attack,” Modi while addressing a conference of presiding officers virtually on the Constitution Day, said, “This date is also associated with the biggest terror attack in our country. In 2008, terrorists sent by Pakistan launched an attack on Mumbai that left many Indians and foreigners dead. I pay my tribute to all of them.”
“Today’s India is fighting terror attacks with new policies and processes,” said Modi. The conference held on the bank of the Narmada river at Kevadiya Colony in Gujarat was organized by the Lok Sabha speaker O M Birla.
Modi also paid tribute to the policemen and all the citizens who lost their lives in the attacks. The Prime Minister also paid obeisance to the security forces who he said are trying to defend India and are thwarting conspiracies like Mumbai attacks.
On November 26, 2008, terrorists of Pakistan-based LeT had carried out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. At least 166 people, including six Americans and nine terrorists, were killed and more than 300 others were injured in the attacks. The Taj Mahal hotel, the Oberoi hotel, the Leopold Cafe, the Nariman (Chabad) House and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station were some of the locations targeted.
On the occasion, the United States assuring full support to India to fight against terrorism said, “America stands with India and remains resolute in the fight against terrorism”
The deputy spokesman of the US State Department Cale Brown said, “On the 12th anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai attack, the US reaffirms its commitment to holding the perpetrators accountable and ensuring justice for the victims, including six Americans. Standing alongside our Indian partners, we remain resolute in the fight against terrorism.”
The six US citizens killed during the 26/11 attacks were Ben Zion Chroman, Gavriel Holtzberg, Sandeep Jeswani, Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum, Alan Scherr and his daughter Naomi Scherr. David Coleman Headley – a Pakistani-American and Tahawwur Rana – a former Pakistan Army doctor and currently a Canadian citizen were indicted in a US court for their support to the LeT terrorist operation.
As the US reaffirmed its commitment to hold responsible the perpetrators of the carnage in India’s financial hub, Indian foreign secretary S Jaishankar, currently on a three-nation tour of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Seychelles, in a tweet message said India would keep the world community’s focus on Pakistan’s role in cross-border terrorism.
“Will keep the global spotlight firmly on the menace of cross-border terrorism against India. And on the epicentre of global terrorism,” Jaishankar said without naming Pakistan.
Jaishankar also paid homage to victims of the terror attacks and lauded the security forces “who continue to defend our nation so resolutely”.
US ambassador Kenneth Juster also said in a tweet, “On the 12th anniversary of 26/11, our thoughts are with the people of India as we continue to stand together in the fight against terrorism.”
Even as the world is calling for holding the perpetrators of the inhuman crime accountable, the masterminds behind the brutal attack, Haifz Saeed, the co-founder of the LeT and the JuD, and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the chief operational commander and the head of the LeT’s jihad wing, have not only gone unpunished, they were actually been provided the royal treatment in Pakistan under the very nose of the government.
Though the men were put on trial and dozens of prosecution witnesses testified about their involvement in planning, funding and supporting the attacks, little headway has been made in their prosecution. Lakhvi was freed on bail more than five years ago and his current whereabouts are unknown. Reports from Pakistan have suggested that he has resumed an active role in the operations of the UN-designated LeT at a time when several of the group’s top leadership, including founder Hafiz Saeed, are supposed to be in jail after being “convicted” of terror financing.
But the information the Indian intelligence department received was that Hafiz Saeed is not serving time in Kot Lakhpat jail as was widely publicized by Pakistan, but at his Johar Town house in Lahore from where he runs the terror group. “He is mostly at home… ostensibly in protective custody that even lets him receive guests,” an intelligence official said.
Saeed was formally placed under arrest in July 2019, months before he was sentenced to 10 years and six months in jail in a terror financing case in February this year that was described by the United States as an “important step forward”. Last week, he was handed down another set of 10 years “jail term” in two other terror-financing cases but all of them had proved to just eye-wash.
Saeed’s arrest and his “conviction” is believed to only an effort by the Imran Khan government to stay off the Financial Action Task Force ‘black list’ that could potentially entail extensive economic sanctions and as Prime Minister Imran Khan once put it, “destroy Pakistan’s economy.”
Last month, according to the intelligence input, Saeed’s visitor at home was Lakhvi. The meeting is learnt to have centered around some steps that they needed to take to collect funds for jihad.
Like Saeed, Lakhvi is also a UNSC designated terrorist and is the lead plotter of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. He has been arrested more than once by Pakistani security forces for terror in face of international pressure but like his boss Hafiz Saeed, has always been let off due to lack of evidence. Indian officials said it was Lakhvi who persuaded, guided and handled Pakistan-born US citizen David Headley for reconnaissance missions in India prior to the 26/11 attacks.
Pakistan watchers in New Delhi said intelligence inputs that Hafiz Saeed was not being held in prison were in line with a pattern about Islamabad’s track record in dealing with terrorists. One of them conceded that they were initially surprised when Hafiz Saeed was convicted for the first time for 10 years and six months and had tentatively interpreted it to indicate that Saeed had outlived his utility for the Pakistani deep state. Saeed had been arrested several times since the 9/11 attacks but was always set free after the pressure eased.
Indian officials said they were still not clear how Pakistan had dealt with the paperwork around Hafiz Saeed’s judicial custody.
“Our understanding on the basis of the available information is that this may be an informal arrangement. We are not aware if there is a formal order notifying Hafiz Saeed’s house as a prison,” intelligence officials said.
It was with this confidence in the Pakistan government that Saeed had mocked the United States when it first announced the $ 10 million bounty for his whereabouts in 2012. “I am ready to send information about my location on a daily basis,” a brazen Hafiz Saeed told a news conference soon after, asking the United States to send him the money.
The intelligence sources said though some LeT leaders have been declared as “arrested”, it is clear that they have only been taken in “protective-custody” and accommodated at their residences with complete freedom to operate and run the activities of the outfit, including fund raising.
The officials added that the Pakistani government has refused to act on “irrefutable evidence” provided by India against the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and has maintained that there was not enough evidence against Saeed and others involved.
According to Indian security officials, the perpetrators of the attack are: Saeed (Lahore), Lakhvi (Islamabad), Yusuf Muzammil (Islamabad), David Coleman Headley (under detention in the US), Tahawwur Hussain Rana (under detention in the US), Sajjid Majid (Lahore), Abdur Rehman Syed (Lahore), Major Iqbal (Lahore), Major Sameer Ali (Lahore), Illyas Kashmiri (deceased), Abu Qahafa, and Mazhar Iqbal (charge-sheeted by Pakistan in connection with the Mumbai attacks).
The Pakistani government and its deep state have time and again displayed their unwillingness and inability to take on the LeT as well as other India-centric terrorist outfits operating from its soil, the officials said.