Refocus on Mumbai Attacks (JR84SS2) By Sajjad Shaukat
On November 26, 2008, several persons were killed in
the simultaneous terror attacks in Mumbai. Without any investigation, Indian
high officials and media had started blaming Pakistan.
Mumbai attack was just another false flag operation of
Indian establishment to gain sympathies of world community and defame Pakistan
in the comity of nations. The whole drama was staged to put blame Pakistan and its
intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
It is notable that renowned thinkers, Hobbes,
Machiavelli and Morgenthau opine that sometimes, rulers act upon immoral
activities like deceit, fraud and falsehood to fulfil their countries’ selfish
aims. But such a sinister politics was replaced by new trends such as
fair-dealings, reconciliation and economic development. Regrettably, India is
still following past politics in modern era.
Under the cover of the Mumbai catastrophe, India began
a deliberate propaganda campaign against Pakistan and tried to isolate the
latter in the comity of nations by showing that Islamabad was sponsoring
terrorism in India. In this regard, Indian former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and its other high officials, while repeating old rhetoric of baseless
allegations, stated that Pakistan has “epicentre of terrorism” and Islamabad
should “end infrastructure of terrorism.” L.K. Advani, leader of the BJP, while
accusing Pakistan as the hotbed of terror in the region, said that Pakistan’s
secret agency ISI should be declared a terror outfit.
In this respect, Indian top officials and TV channels
had remarked that Indian Mujahideen and the banned Lashkar-e-Tayba (LeT) based
in Pakistan and ISI were behind the Mumbai terror attacks. With the assistance
of Indian secret agency RAW, Indian investigators fabricated a false story that
10 terrorists who executed Mumbai carnage came in a boat from Karachi and were
in contact with the members of the banned Lashker-e-Taiba through phone calls.
But a number of questions arise in relation to the so-called links,
deliberately entangling Pakistan. First, how it is possible that the militants
phoned 100 times inside Pakistan, but they did not call their families? Second,
the lonely gunman Ajmal Kasab who was arrested, knew his address and why he did
not indicate the names and home addresses of other 9 fugitives with whom he
lived for a long time? Third, after the hard journey of more than 50 hours,
travelling on the slow moving water, evading 20 coastal guards of Indian Navy,
how they reached Mumbai? Fourth, where did they change their muddy shoes and
wet dresses? Fifth, how it became possible that they immediately hired a taxi
and reached their targets, without taking some rest? Sixth, why the terrorists
killed only four people at the Nariman house, sparing the other six guys
present there?
Availing the pretext of the Mumbai catastrophe, New
Delhi had suspended the process of ‘composite dialogue’ in wake of its highly
provocative actions like mobilisation of troops. Islamabad had also taken
defensive steps to meet any Indian prospective aggression or surgical strikes.
But, India failed in implementing its aggressive plans, because Pakistan also
possesses atomic weapons.
However, in the post-Mumbai terror attacks, Indian
rulers had started blackmailing Islamabad that they would not resume the talks
unless Islamabad takes actions against the culprits of Mumbai mayhem. New Delhi
urged Islamabad to arrest the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks.
Rejecting Pakistan’s stand that its government or any official agency was not
involved in the Mumbai attacks, New Delhi wanted to make Islamabad accept all
other Indian demands since our rulers admitted that Ajmal Kasab was Pakistani
national. In fact, Islamabad’s admission which had emboldened New Delhi was
forced by the US. And, Ajmal Kasab was tortured by the Indian intelligence
agencies so as to endorse Indian false story against Islamabad, while giving
statement in an Indian court. Suppose, even if he was Pakistani, it did not
matter because he was a non-state actor, as non-state actors like smugglers and
the militants are found in many countries.
It is of particular attention that on July 19, 2013,
the Indian former home ministry and ex-investigating officer Satish Verma
disclosed that terror attacks in Mumbai in November 26, 2008 and assault on
Indian Parliament in January 12, 2001 were carried out by the Indian government
to strengthen anti-terrorism laws.
It has clearly proved that Indian secret agencies;
particularly RAW arranged coordinated terror attacks in Mumbai and orchestrated
that drama only to defame Pakistan in the world, but also to fulfil a number
of other sinister aims.
As a matter of fact, a lack of seriousness on India’s
part to settle all disputes, especially Kashmir issue has compelled New Delhi
to follow a self-contradictory and confused strategy towards Islamabad.
Hence, New Delhi earnestly found various pretexts to
cancel peace talks, while shifting the blame to Islamabad. For example, besides
Mumbai attacks, in 2002, under the pretension of terrorist attack on the Indian
parliament, India postponed the dialogue process.
In this connection, on July 27, 2015, three gunmen
dressed in army uniforms killed at least seven people, including three
civilians and four policemen in the Indian district of Gurdaspur, Punjab.
Without any investigation, Indian high officials and
media started accusing Pakistan, its banned militant outfits and intelligence
agencies for the Gurdaspur incident. Indian Police remarked that the attackers
are from Indian-held Kashmir, and some said that they were Sikh separatists,
while Indian Punjab police chief claimed that the three gunmen were Muslim, but
as yet unidentified. Contradicting speculations, India’s Home Minister Rajnath
Singh told parliament that the gunmen came from Pakistan.
Khalistan Movement Chief Manmohan Singh stated that
the Gurdaspur incident is “a conspiracy of Indian secret agency RAW to defame
Pakistan.”
Besides, prior to the US President Obama’s second
visit to New Delhi, Indian intelligence agencies orchestrated a boat drama to
defame Pakistan, allegedly reporting that a Pakistani fishing boat as a
Pakistan-based outfit group Lashkar-e-Taiba was intercepted by Indian Coast
Guards, off the coast of Porebandar, Gujarat. And Indian Coast Guard crew set
the boat on fire and it exploded. But, its reality exposed Indian terrorism,
because, some Indian high officials admitted that there was no such boat which
came from Pakistan.
Similarly, India orchestrated the drama of militants’
attack at Indian Air Force Base in Pathankot on January 2, 2016. Indian media
and top civil and military officials started claiming that the attackers had
arrived from Pakistani Punjab’s Bahawalpur district, and had links with
Jaish-e-Mohammad and ISI. But, despite Islamabad’s cooperation with New Delhi
like formation of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) consisting of
professionals to investigate the Pathankot attack, crackdown against the
militant group Jaish-i-Mohammad—lodging of a First Information Report (FIR) in
relation to the incident, India failed in providing any proof of Pakistan’s
involvement in the Pathankot episode.
Indian authorities did not cooperate with Pakistan’s
Joint Investigation Team which visited India to probe into Pathankot attack.
The JIT members visited Pathankot Airbase on March 29 where Indian National
Investigation Agency officials briefed and showed them the route from where the
attackers stormed the airbase. In fact, besides fulfilling other sinister
designs against Pakistan, New Delhi staged that drama to postpone
secretary-level talks with Pakistan, which were scheduled to be held in
Islamabad on January 15, 2016.
Sources said that the lights along the 24-km perimeter
wall of the Pathankot airbase found to be faulty on the eve of the attack. The
Pakistani investigators were allowed to enter the military airbase from the
narrow adjacent routes instead of main entrance and their duration of the visit
was just 55 minutes, enough to take a mere walk through the airbase. The JIT
could not collect evidence in this limited time. And the visiting team was only
informed about the negligence of Boarder Security Force (BSF) and Indian
forces. It was disclosed that at the time of the assault, the BSF was sleeping,
even though they had been alerted of a possible attack 48 hours earlier.
India’s orchestrated drama of the Pathankot incident
could also be judged from the fact that earlier, Indian Defence Minister
Manohar Parrikar had stated in confusion that New Delhi would not allow access
to the JIT into the base, though it was allowed on very limited scale to
fulfill the formality. It can undermine the seriousness of bilateral
commitments to find the truth.
Continuing false flag operations, on September, 2016,
India also staged the drama of the terror attack in the Indian Occupied Kashmir
(IOK) at a military base in Uri, close to the Line of Control (LoC) with
Pakistan.
Like the previous terrorism-related events, without
any investigation, Indian media, civil and military high officials started
blaming LeT and ISI, saying that the militants who target the Uri base came
from Pakistan’s side of Azad Kashmir. In this regard, a senior Home Ministry
official and a spokesman of the Indian army allegedly said, “It is clearly a
case of cross-border terror attack…the militants infiltrated across the Line of
Control from Pakistan before attacking the base in Uri.”
The situation developed in the aftermath of the Uri
base terror assault like creation of Indian war hysteria against Pakistan,
mobilisation of troops near the LoC, exposure of the myth of Indian surgical
strikes inside Azad Kashmir, differences between Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and Country’s Army Chief Gen. Dalbir Sing about the ‘fake video’ of this episode,
criticism Modi government inside India, continuous violations at the LoC,
targeting villages of Azad Kashmir etc., and diversion of attention from the
new phase of uprising in the Indian held Kashmir where Indian security forces
have martyred more than 600 innocent Kashmiris since July 8, 2016, who have
been protesting against the martyrdom of the young Kashmir leader Burhan Wani
by the Indian security forces in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) in wake of
continued sieges and prolonged curfew have clearly proved that with the help of
Indian intelligence agencies, especially RAW, India has itself arranged the Uri
base assault not only to defame Pakistan abroad, but also to achieve a number
of sinister designs.
Nevertheless, all these terror attacks were planned by
Indian security agencies to distort image of Pakistan and its primary
intelligence agency, ISI, linking it with the banned group Lashkar-e-Taiba. In
these terms, coordinated terror assaults of November 26, 2008 in Mumbai were
part of the same Indian scheme.
Sajjad Shaukat
writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic
Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International
Relations
Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com
