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analysis: Seeking hard evidence —Ijaz Hussain

India and the international community should stop bullying Pakistan. The latter has every right to refuse to take action as long as the nationality of Kasab and other terrorists is not established beyond doubt

Pakistan and India are at loggerheads with each other on the identity of the Mumbai terrorists. The Indian government claims that they are Pakistanis, and that enough evidence has been provided to Pakistan on that count. It contends that it is now time for Pakistan to act.

The Pakistani government denies the Indian claim; more specifically, it rejects that Ajmal Kasab is a Pakistani on the ground that his name does not figure in the NADRA record. It contends that it never received any evidence from the Indian government in the matter.

To break the deadlock, Pakistan has proposed a joint investigation by the two countries or in association with the US and Britain. India has, however, rejected the proposal. American and British leaders too have joined the Indian government in asking Pakistan to act rather than drag its feet on the question of proof.

Why is the Indian government reluctant to satisfy Pakistan on the matter; and is Pakistan’s demand for hard evidence unwarranted?

There are number of reasons why the Indian government is shying away from sharing evidence and a joint investigation. To begin with, it knows that it cannot satisfy the Pakistani government because the kind of evidence it has at its disposal (even if it is undoctored) simply cannot stand in a court of law. Perhaps it fears that a close scrutiny of the evidence by Pakistan would expose the hollowness of its case.

Secondly, it may be scared that Pakistan’s involvement in any investigation could spill the beans about the extent of local involvement in helping the Mumbai terrorists in their operations. The Indian apprehension is understandable because given the length of time the terrorists were able to hold out against special forces and the extent of mayhem they caused, extensive autochthon involvement is more than probable. The hint by India that local involvement could be limited to mere supply of SIMs for mobile phones and maps of Mumbai is far from convincing.

Thirdly, joint investigation would not go down well with the Indian public at large and the main opposition party, the BJP, for whom Pakistan’s culpability in the matter is beyond doubt. They are boiling with rage and are egging the Indian government to take on Pakistan by mounting military operations against it. The ruling Congress party is perhaps scared that a joint investigation could send the message that it is being soft on Pakistan, which could hurt its chances of success in the next general elections.

Fourthly, India, which fancies itself as an emerging global power and would like to arrogate to itself the right to make a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan, loathes sharing evidence with it, let alone establishing a joint investigation mechanism. It is like the US sharing evidence with Al Qaeda after 9/11 or Israel negotiating with Hezbollah.

As far as American and British support for India is concerned, they are doing so because they are concerned that if Pakistan does not toe the Indian line, India might strike against Pakistan. That would force Pakistan to shift its troops from the western to the eastern border as it has threatened to do (and has partially done). They are concerned that that would terribly affect the ongoing war on terror in Afghanistan.

This shows that they are not bothered about Pakistan’s reasonable contention about the irrefutability of the evidence before it decides to take action. They are concerned about their own interests and not Pakistan’s. This should not be surprising. The recent observation by the US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher is quite revealing in this regard. When asked to react to Pakistanis’ rage at the American drone attacks in FATA, he stated without mincing words that the US couldn’t care less if it was so.

The Pakistan government is justified in seeking evidence before it acts because those arrested will undoubtedly challenge their detention orders. This is what happened when Pervez Musharraf banned jihadi outfits, including the Lashkar-e Tayba, and arrested more than two thousand of their activists. Those arrested challenged the action and two years later, the courts ordered their release for lack of sufficient evidence.

The Pakistan government is also justified because on many occasions in the past, the Indian government tried to shift blame on to Pakistan for heinous acts committed by its own intelligence agencies. For example, India blamed Pakistan for the massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chittisingpora during Bill Clinton’s visit to India in 2000. However, later on it turned out that Pakistan had nothing to do with it and that it was the Indian intelligence agencies that stage-managed it. Similarly, India blamed Pakistan for the Samjhota Express attack. However, subsequently it was revealed that Col Purohit of the Indian Army, not the ISI, was involved.

Here the question arises that if the Pakistani government is so adamant in seeking hard evidence before taking further action, why did it not object when the Sanctions Committee was considering banning the Jama’at-ud Dawa and its top officials. The fact of the matter is that the Sanctions Committee was seized of the issue for quite some time but hadn’t taken a decision because of a technical objection raised by China. According to press reports, wilting under intense American pressure, Pakistan asked the latter to remove the objection which led to the decision by the Sanctions Committee.

If the Pakistani government is asking for evidence now, it is possibly because of the realisation that its appeasement policy was leading to further Indian and Western demands. In any case, failure by Pakistan to challenge the Sanctions Committee is an indirect acknowledgement that the evidence is irrefutable. This has certainly weakened Pakistan’s present stance.

What is the way out of this controversy? To begin with, Pakistan’s plea that it has nothing to do with the Mumbai incident because Kasab does not figure in the NADRA record is unconvincing for the simple reason that he may not have registered with NADRA. Besides, there are reports that his father has acknowledged that Kasab is his son and Faridkot residents have confirmed that he comes from their village. At best, the Pakistani government could have expressed scepticism about Kasab’s nationality. Its assertion that he is not a Pakistani makes it look insincere. Obviously it has lot of explaining to do.

As far as India and the international community are concerned, they should stop bullying Pakistan. The latter has every right to refuse to take action as long as the nationality of Kasab and other terrorists is not established beyond doubt. It is ludicrous for India to share evidence with Western intelligence agencies but not with Pakistan. If India really wants Pakistan’s full cooperation in unmasking those behind the Mumbai mayhem, it would have to satisfy Pakistan on the nationality of the terrorists.

The writer is a former dean of social sciences at the Quaid-i-Azam University. He can be reached at hussain_ijaz@hotmail.com

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