New Delhi, January 4
Its patience with Pakistan running thin, India is set to launch a major diplomatic offensive to ask the international community to intensify pressure on Islamabad to comply with its obligation to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.
It’s been more than a month since Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba men, armed to the teeth, invaded India’s commercial capital of Mumbai, killing nearly 180 people.
An enraged nation demanded revenge for the killings and the Manmohan Singh government came under intense public pressure to launch surgical strikes to destroy militant training camps across the border. Simultaneously, however, came the advice of major world powers to New Delhi to exercise restraint.
The war option seems to be off the table at least for now. But, what other option India has to force Pakistan to act against the 26/11 perpetrators and ensure such terrorist acts were not repeated?
Working overtime, Indian intelligence and security agencies have collected heaps of evidence, which nails Pakistan’s lies and proves beyond doubt that the Mumbai operation was carried out by 10 LeT men, with the active support of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI.
Armed with the dossier of evidence, Home Minister P Chidambaram is leaving for the US next week to share it with Washington. Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei is also scheduled to arrive in New Delhi tomorrow for talks on the escalating Indo-Pak tension. Indian authorities would share with him too the evidence suggesting Pakistan’s involvement.
India also plans to give the dossier to UK, France, Russia, key EU nations and major Islamic and Arab states in the coming days in a determined bid to tighten the noose around Islamabad for its failure to rein in the ‘jehadi’ groups, which have been provided safe sanctuaries on the Pakistani soil.
It is believed that the evidence to be shared includes records of logbook recovered from the ship used by the terrorists to reach Mumbai from Karachi; records of the satellite phone used by them, intercepted transcripts of conversation between the terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan and the confessions made by Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist from the carnage.
Official sources opine that the Mumbai massacre has for the first time made the whole world realise that Pakistan was the epicentre of terrorism. There was all-around pressure on Islamabad from major world powers to deal effectively with terrorism emanating from its soil.
Sources said India had by and large succeeded in convincing the global community that terrorism emanating from Pakistan did not pose a threat to India alone, but to the entire civilised world.
New Delhi’s dilemma in dealing with Pakistan is quite understandable. Any military action could lead to the army takeover of Pakistan, which would obviously be detrimental to India’s strategic interests. Militants will again start operating freely in the country, which could spell more trouble for India.
Strategic experts, meanwhile, said India must clearly tell Pakistan what it expected of the neighbouring nation and officially announce that the composite dialogue process had been put on hold.
‘’We are seeking justice and not revenge… Pakistan must hand over to India the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack,’’ said Uday C Bhakar, former Director of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA). He, however, did not favour snapping diplomatic links with Islamabad. ‘’We should talk to them (Pakistan). Not having communication links is not desirable… diplomatic channels must continue to function.’’
Bhaskar said India must also take up the issue with financial various multilateral financial institutions, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to argue that any aid to Pakistan in future must not be without a firm guarantee by Islamabad that it would not allow the misuse of its territory for exporting terror.
