Mumbai Terror attacks: 26/11- India knew nothing, did nothing

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26/11- India knew nothing, did nothing

The world witnessed the city of Bombay being controlled for over 48 hours by a set of ten Lashar-e-Tayiba terrorists. The 26/11 attack which claimed over 160 lives will be something that India and the rest of the world will never come to terms with. What followed after 26/11 were allegations and counter allegations with Pakistan. However what is most prominent is the extremely shoddy probe by the crime branch led by Rakesh Maria and possibly every agency across the world has ridiculed this probe terming it as hurried and childish. Fragile Frontiers: The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks is probably one of the most well written books which explores every bit of the attack, prior to it and after it. Written by Saroj Kumar Rath who is an Assistant Professor of History at the Sri Aurobindo College (Eve), University of Delhi, the book provides facts about the attack and more importantly how shoddy the probe was. Rath speaks about a mysterious Basheer who received David Headley in India before he went about surveying the targets that were attacked. In this interview with rediff.com, Rath says that the entire attack was planned and executed in a bid to keep the militants in Pakistan especially the Lashkar united.


Sir, please tell us something about your book.

The book deals with the 26/11 attack and also points out that it was not an isolated incident. While going through almost every document attached to this attack, I have traced why the attack was executed. There have been many attacks in India, but not much study on it. What I have taken into account was what was at stake in this attack. I have gone through in details 12000 pages of the chargesheet and also the documents and what I found was there was a lacuna. The strangest part of the chargesheet was that there is no scrutiny of the Lashkar in it. I have also dealt with how the attack was planned and also the conspiracy angle to it which was built over a large period of time I have gone through classified documents attached to the attack. What I realised is that after 9/11 the people in the United States of America got a sense of what happened during that attack. In India, post 26/11 most of the details were kept a secret and the public does not know a lot about the attack.

What in your view was the motive behind the attack?

After 9/11 the United States of America tightened its security. In 2003, General Pervez Musharraf had conducted nearly 3000 arrests. Although Pakistan was providing the US support, they were still supporting the militants also. There were a lot of militants in Pakistan who wanted to fight against the US in Afghanistan which Pakistan did not approve of. The 26/11 attack was planned to stop this trend and to keep the militants in Pakistan united.

Tell us more sir"¦

The attack was not planned overnight. Pakistan wanted it to be a spectacular attack The Pakistan army which was fighting in Afghanistan was in a dilemma whether to fight the battle with the US or fight against their own brothers. It was at this time that around 1700 Pakistani officers had deserted their army. They either joined the militants or decided to stay at home. There was a lot of disillusionment in the Pakistan army and also among the militants. Pakistan wanted to lift the morale of these people. Hence they sought to orchestrate such an attack. The Lashkar was in the meantime debating whether to go and fight the war in Afghanistan or not. Pakistan however wanted to desperately keep the Lashkar away from Afghanistan. They wanted to keep them busy and hence came about the 26/11 attack.

Let us speak about David Headley.

David Headley was not an overnight product. He was an extremely useful person. In 1989 he was sent by the US to Afghanistan to collect information on the drug lords. The US was very well aware of this person. There is enough material to prove that the US knew about Headley. Even after the 26/11 attack his girlfriend had informed the US about him. He was planted by the US into the Lashkar. However post 26/11 he was not given any job although he wanted to continue fighting and even Pakistan was aware of this. The ISI had decided to use him as an asset but that plan was changed later.

What about India? Did we have information on him?

India is not that pro-active when it comes to all this. India had no information about him at all. The US knew about this attack. Headley was arrested nearly a year after the 26/11 attack. In fact he was arrested for his role in the Denmark Mickey Mouse project case. What is interesting is that the US wanted to keep him quiet after the 26/11 attack since he was proving to be dangerous. They felt that he would try and blow up the Empire State Building. The US came to this conclusion since Headley's friend. Tawwahur Rana had his office in the Empire State Building and the former was an unofficial entrant into his office. The US felt that since he knew a lot about the building, his next plan would be to replicate a 9/11 kind of attack and blow up the Empire State Building.

During the course of study did you find there being any local support during the 26/11 attack?

There are three locals who had supported the 26/11 attack. Headley was supported by an Indian by the name Basheer who incidentally is a friend of Rana who arranged the travel documents for Headley. When Headley landed in India, he was received by Basheer. The angle pertaining to Basheer was never probed into by India and he continues to remain a mystery to all the agencies. I would like to point out to the role played by Sabahuddin Ahmed and Fahim Ansari too. There is a long trail to say that they had some role in the attack. If you scrutinise the arguments both these persons had a Pakistani passport. Both of them had a hand made map which was found in the pocket of Ismail Khan the man who was with Ajmal Kasab part of the buddy pair. Kasab had in fact confessed before the Magistrate that two Indians had provided hand made maps to them. The investigators infact were lacking on this aspect and were not able to relate these incidents and prove it before the court. The question here is if there was no map at all, then how did the Rampur police probing the CRPF attack case of which Fahim and Saba are accused have the same map with them? They were arrested much before the 26/11 attack case by the Rampur police and they had found the same map on them. Basically what led to their release was a weak probe which was done very shoddily. The other local I would like to point out here is Abu Jundal whose role in the attack is very clear.

Are you aware of a lady who guided the terrorists from Machimarnagar?

There is not much information about this lady, but then there is a claim that one lady had argued with one of the terrorists and she well could be the one who helped them.

Tell us more about the Indian investigation into the attack.

The chargesheet is weak and very poorly done. The prosecution took a very casual approach. The chargesheet is all about forensics, confession of property, loss of public life, the post mortem report and a confession by Kasab. This is a very shoddily prepared chargesheet and they have not even attempted going into the crux of the problem. 20 days after the attack, Kasab was interrogated for 8 hours by the FBI. They have extracted what ever they wanted to. Now compare this with Headley. It took us nearly one year to get access to him. Moreover when we questioned him no magistrate was allowed and there was no permission granted to videograph of record the conversation with Headley. The US did not let us do this as they feared they could stand exposed and India did nothing much about it.

How do you analyse the handling of the attack by our forces?

There was a total absence of leadership. The marcos had come but refused to enter Taj as they said they had no written order. The NSG plane from Delhi was delayed. Had the local police been trained they could have tackled the attack.

You accuse the investigators of not dealing with the Lashkar more in its chargesheet.
After the 9/11 attack, it is not as though there was no attempt being made to attack the US. They infact have prevented 20 out of 22 attacks post 9/11. The vigilante of the US personnel has ensured that attacks have not taken place on US soil. After 26/11 the US had sent a team to probe the case and this despite the fact that the Lashkar not attacking the US even once. On the other hand we have been repeatedly attacked by the Lashkar and there is no organised attempt being made to understand the outfit. How the Lashkar has been behaving post 26/11 and their threats and plans- nothing of which has been attempted to be understood.

What have you understood of the Lashkar post 26/11?

Hafiz Saeed is a very powerful man. He himself had attended a meeting of the ISI and the army recently to plan and ignite a conflict across the border. This meeting was held a few days before our jawans were beheaded by the Pakistanis. The Lashkar had a huge network and today they have enough control over every wing. For money they have the Jammat-ud-Dawa, for militancy the Lashkar. They were not into politics all these years. They have realised that they need to have a political voice in order to survive longer and hence had started the Difa-e-Pakistan. They have realised that unless they have a pressure group within the political circle they cannot survive for long. They have integrated with the army, politics and society through their three wings. With regard to their capabilities, they are very capable of carrying out an attack on a large scale compared to 26/11.

 

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Bashir, who helped David Headley in Mumbai, is a free man

During his interrogation, Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley told American investigators that a man named Bashir escorted him from the time he arrived in Mumbai for the first time on September 14, 2006 (Headley stayed in India till December 14, 2006), and on his subsequent visits in 2008 and 2009 as well.

Bashir, according to sources, rented an apartment near the Sterling Cinema in south Mumbai. Headley then stayed at the Outram Hotel near Bashir's apartment.

When Headley returned in 2008 and 2009 -- when he conducted surveys of possible attack sites in Delhi and Pune -- he sought Bashir's help. The two men surveyed the German Bakery and Osho Ashram in Pune. Whatever material Headley collected, he dropped it off at Bashir's home in Mumbai.

On his return to Mumbai from Pune in 2009, David Headley visited Bashir's home to collect the material and some of his luggage.

'From Pune I went to Mumbai,' Headley told Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. 'I also went to a cyber cafe and accessed my mail. I went to see a movie in the same theatre which I had visited in 2008. After the movie, I went to Bashir's house and took some stuff from the luggage. Bashir told me his immigration to Canada was almost through.'

Bashir, Headley told the FBI, was a contact provided to him by Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Rana, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison for providing material support to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and for his involvement in a plot to attack a Danish newspaper.

Bashir was Rana's contact in India, helped Headley with paperwork and escorted him around.

'I carried $3,000, $4,000 during my first trip and two credit cards,' Headley told FBI agents and later India's National Investigation Agency agents. 'During that trip, I carried my mother-in-law's camera with which I took videos and photographs. I cannot recollect the model of the camera. I spoke to Rana before my visit who told me that Bashir would receive me at Mumbai airport.'

'This was my first visit to India. I had never visited the country in any other name before this,' Headley said.

According to sources, neither the Mumbai police nor the NIA discovered who Bashir was.

Headley told his interrogators that Bashir had received him at Mumbai airport in September 2006. The airport is under CCTV surveillance, but it appears investigators have not tried to put a face to Bashir.

Tracking down Bashir, NIA agents say, is difficult since he may now be living in Canada.

"Bashir is a very important link to the Headley case," an intelligence expert told this correspondent, speaking on condition that he would not be identified by name in this report. "India has not attempted to seek information from Canada about Bashir."