Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who has been in limelight for last few months for criticising the judiciary and military establishment, has drawn ire of the top civil and military leadership over his comments on the 2008 Mumbai attacks in a recent interview to Dawn.
Nawaz, in the interview, had said, “Militant organisations are active. Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai? Explain it to me. Why can’t we complete the trial?”
The statement was condemned by all the political parties, including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), with many political leaders demanding that Nawaz Sharif be tried for high treason.
On Monday, a meeting of National Security Committee (NSC), which was chaired by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, categorically denied the controversial comments, calling it “completely false and misleading”.
Later in the day, the PM had also tried to “clear the confusion” surrounding the statement, saying Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif was “misreported and misinterpreted”. However, Nawaz Sharif stuck to his stance, saying that he has said nothing new as “former president Pervez Musharraf, former interior minister Rehman Malik and former national security adviser Major-General (r) Mehmood Durrani had already confirmed [what I said]”.
Pakistan Today takes a look at officials, who at one point or another, “admitted” rogue elements’ involvement in the Mumbai attacks on Nov 26, 2008.
EX-INTERIOR MINISTER REHMAN MALIK:
Rehman Malik, interior minister at the time, was quoted as saying, “some part of the conspiracy has taken place in Pakistan and…according to the available information, most of them (the suspects) are in our custody.”
Malik had said the assailants used three boats to travel from Pakistan to Mumbai.
He had said detectives had traced an engine recovered from one of the vessels to a shop in Karachi. He had said the shopkeeper had provided the phone number of the buyer which led them to Hammad Amin Sadiq.
Malik had said authorities had arrested Sadiq and obtained from him information that led them to bust two “hideouts of the terrorists”, one in Karachi and one about two hours drive away. He had described Sadiq as “the main operator”, but didn’t elaborate.
However, Rehman Malik has now urged the deposed PM to retract the Mumbai attack statement.
EX-ISI CHIEF LT GEN (R) SHUJA PASHA:
According to an interview given by Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, then Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt General Shuja Pasha had admitted that planners of the 26/11 attacks were “our people” but it was not “our operation”.
At the end of his meetings with CIA chief General Michael Hayden, Pasha had reportedly visited Haqqani at the latter’s residence. “Pasha said to me ‘Log hamaray thay, operation hamara nahin tha’,” Haqqani writes in the book — “India vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends?”
“General Pasha had also told General Hayden that ‘retired military officers and retired intelligence officers’ had been involved in the planning of the attacks,” Haqqani had said while speaking to an Indian newspaper.
The conversation between the chiefs of the ISI and CIA has been recounted in three books earlier — by then US National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice in her memoirs, Bob Woodward in his book “Obama Wars” and by General Hayden himself in his autobiography, “Playing to The Edge”. However, this was the first time General Pasha’s words corroborating the Pakistani link was recorded by a Pakistani official.
EX-ISPR DG ATHAR ABBAS:
In 2011, then military spokesman, Major General (r) Athar Abbas had hinted at the involvement of retired ISI officials in the 2008 Mumbai attack, but categorically denied any role of serving intelligence operatives.
The ISPR chief, during his interaction with a visiting delegation of Indian journalists and in an interview with CNN-IBN, had indicated the possibility of some retired officials collaborating with the Mumbai perpetrators.
MUSHARRAF’S ‘CONTROVERSIAL’ REMARKS:
In 2011, Gen Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former military ruler admitted that rogue elements of the country’s intelligence service may have helped Osama bin Laden evade justice for years before he was shot dead by a US Navy Seals team.
According to an article published by the Telegraph, Musharraf’s comments reignited suspicions of a “shadow” element operating within the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate to further the cause of Islamic extremists.
In October 2010, Interpol had issued arrest warrants for two men believed to be serving officers in the ISI, and another retired official, for their roles in allegedly planning the 2008 Mumbai terror attack in which 166 people were killed.
‘AJMAL KASAB IS A PAKISTANI CITIZEN’
In 2009, then federal minister for information, Sherry Rehman told the BBC that Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani citizen.
Commenting on Nawaz’s statement, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader on Sunday had said Nawaz was essaying to dissipate sacrifices of Pakistanis against terrorism.
“Our party strongly rejects his stance, which compromises Pakistan’s narrative in the war against terrorism,” she had said while addressing a conference in Karachi.