‘Pakistan policy to liberate Kashmir with jihadis has backfired’

Pakistan’s involvement with jihadi groups at the highest level aimed at “liberation” of Jammu and Kashmir has backfired, ex-diplomat Husain Haqqani said on Tuesday following the deadly terror attack in Lahore.

And even as its decades-old policy has backfired, the Pakistani establishment is reluctant to declare an all-out war against terrorist groups, Mr. Haqqani, the country’s former envoy to the U.S., told PBS in an interview.

“Pakistan’s involvement with jihadi groups initially was primarily as a strategic investment, which was supposed to bring them benefits through influence in Afghanistan and the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir from India. That has backfired,” said Mr. Haqqani.

“Now even though it has backfired, Pakistan has been very selective in going after these jihadi groups. That is the reason why the jihadis pick specific targets like Shias, Ahmadis or Christians, to improve their recruitment, playing on various kinds of polarisation, and taking advantage of that to advance in society further,” he said.

“The real problem lies in that attitude of the government of trying to protect the parties in Punjab, while going after the terrorists in other parts of the country, but not in the Punjab. That’s what has come back to bite them,” he said.

Mr. Haqqani said the fact of the matter is that the Pakistani military and civilian leadership easily gets distracted by delusions of fighting India and its influence in Afghanistan and allowing certain jihadi groups to pursue those objectives, not realising that they can end up having offshoots, just like the Pakistani Taliban emerged out of the Afghan Taliban.

“The Pakistani component of the Afghan Taliban ended up becoming a separate group. And now Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has broken away from the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan has to make a decision to go after all terrorist groups, as well as the mindset that breeds these terrorists. And Pakistan has not been able to make that decision,” he observed.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility for Sunday’s grisly suicide attack in Lahore that killed 72 people.

Mr. Haqqani said the Pakistani establishment is not taking action against India-centric terrorist groups.

“The state has not taken the measures that are necessary to isolate them all. So, there are groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed which attack India. They are spared. Once they are spared, it’s very possible that some of their members will actually join splinter groups which will attack Pakistan,” he argued.

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Mystery over terror alert, encounter deepens

The mystery over the 10 Pakistani terrorists, who purportedly sneaked into Gujarat on the eve of Shivratri earlier this month, has deepened, with most sections of the security establishment distancing themselves from the claims of a senior Home Ministry official that three of them were gunned down somewhere in western India.

The alert about terrorists entering India reportedly came from the newly opened line of communication between the National Security Advisers of the two countries. Though the claims about the killing of three terrorists came while Parliament was in session and on the eve of the meeting between the Foreign Ministers of both countries in Nepal, the government has not yet issued any official statement.

A senior Gujarat bureaucrat told The Hindu on Thursday that they were clueless about the claims, even as the four teams of NSG commandos that were rushed to the State in the wake of the alert have been withdrawn.

‘We are confused’

The PMO is probing how details of the alleged encounter emerged in the media. The Home Ministry, however, has not yet denied the claims of one of its seniormost officials made repeatedly over two days about the encounter.

“We are totally flummoxed at the MHA claim, which we learnt only through the media. We have been requesting the MHA and other agencies to throw some light on the matter if it has happened in Gujarat,” a senior Gujarat bureaucrat said.

The terror alert from Pakistan had its origins in early March. In the first week of March, a BSF patrol team in Sir Creek area reported that 10 Pakistani men were seen on a fishing boat. When the team spotted them, they abandoned the boat and ran away into Pakistani territory.

A day or two after the BSF input, came the call from Pakistan National Security Adviser Nasir Khan Janjua to his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval that 10 terrorists had entered Gujarat to carry out sensational terror attacks.

However, it is still unclear if there was any correlation between the BSF patrol team’s claim and Mr. Janjua’s alert. The alert triggered a heightened security response with the Gujarat police cancelling the leave of all its personnel, NSG commandos taking position in Ahmedabad and around the Somnath temple, where all government sponsored cultural programmes for Mahashivratri were cancelled.

Earlier this week, on two consecutive days, a senior Home Ministry official informally claimed that three of the 10 terrorists had been neutralised somewhere in western India. As the news spread, and questions arose about the veracity of the claims, most in the security establishment distanced themselves from the claims. However, the Home Ministry has not yet denied it.

Meanwhile, the Centre has withdrawn the four NSG teams that were rushed to Gujarat after the high alert regarding a possible strike on the Somnath temple.

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Gujarat on high alert, 4 NSG teams rushed

In the wake of intelligence inputs regarding a possible terror strike by 8-10 LeT operatives, four teams of National Security Guard (NSG) were rushed to Gujarat to strengthen the security cover at vital installations and famous pilgrimage centres in the state.

Top officials in the state claimed that Pakistan's National Security Advisor (NSA) Naseer Khan Janjua informed his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval about a group of fidayeen from the Lashkar-E-Taiba and Jaish-e Muhammed cadres on a mission to a major terror strike in the state.

Following message from General Janjua, India's NSA Mr Doval sent a detailed note to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) which issued an alert warning the security agencies in Gujarat about the putative strike particularly at "some coastal pilgrimage centres in Saurashtra or Kutch."

"We have received four teams of NSGs, who have been deployed in Ahmedabad and Somnath temple. Along with the state police, NSG personnel are on stand by mode," said Gujarat's DGP PC Thakur, who also issued a notification cancelling leaves of all police officials and personnel asking them to report on duty immediately.

Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel told the media in national capital that the authorities had taken all measures so there was no need to worry about. “There is nothing to worry about. We are taking appropriate security measures.” Mrs Patel said.

"Somnath temple on Saurashtra coast is on high alert with beefed up security ahead of Shivratri festival on Monday," Mr Thakur said.

Meanwhile, all public functions to celebrate Shivratri at historical Somnath temple have been cancelled following the alert.

The state police have also heightened security cover to another historical pilgrimage centre Dwarka and Bhavnath in Junagadh where a huge fair is organized on Shivratri.

“We have received inputs from the Intelligence Bureau that around 8-10 terrorists of LeT or JeM have entered Gujarat. The BSF, Police, Coast Guard and other agencies are working on the inputs and combing operations have are underway to hunt the militants," said Gujarat border range IG AK Jadeja.

On Saturday late night, Gujarat's additional Chief Secretary (Home) PK Taneja held a marathon meeting with top police officials and also representatives from BSF, Coast Guard and other agencies to take stock of the security deployment at sensitive and vulnerable places in the state after the IB shared its inputs.

In Gujarat, this is a second major alert about a possible terror strike in the state, which shares land and sea border with neighboring Pakistan.

Earlier, Indian Coast Guard and ministry of defence had claimed to have intercepted an explosive-laden boat off Gujarat coast, which originated from Pakistan on 2014 New Year’s Eve after thorough surveillance. Defence Ministry had claimed that the occupants on board refused to cooperate after being intercepted and blew up the boat.

The government officials had later identified the purported Pakistani fishing boat as Qalandar and said that they had intelligence to suggest that it was due for an “illicit transaction at sea”. The incident had become controversial and the Indian government had even sacked a top Coast Guard official BK Lashali for "contradicting the official stand" on the issue.

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BJP wants Nitish to apologise for lauding Ishrat Jahan

The BJP on Thursday demanded that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar apologise for calling Ishrat Jahan ‘Bihar ki Beti’ (daughter of Bihar), soon after David Coleman Headley told a Mumbai special court that she was a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative.

“Now, Mr. Nitish Kumar should apologise to the country. To garner votes, he had called a terrorist ‘Bihar ki Beti.’ The Congress, [RJD chief] Lalu Prasad and Mr. Nitish Kumar eye votes. The BJP does not take the help of terrorists to garner vote,” BJP MP from Nawada and Union Minister Giriraj Singh said.

In July 2013, severing ties with the BJP, Mr. Nitish Kumar called Ishrat Jahan ‘Bihar ki Beti’ because she had spent her childhood in the State. He was criticising Narendra Modi, then Gujarat Chief Minister, for the alleged fake encounter, in which Ishrat Jahan was killed near Ahmedabad.

Later, Ali Anwar, another leader of the ruling Janata Dal (United) pledged to get her justice.

BJP national spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said those who had called Ishrat ‘Bihar ki Beti’ should make their stand clear in the light of Headley’s deposition.

“After the encounter, many leaders called her innocent and some were calling her the daughter of Bihar. Today, it has become clear that it was not a fake encounter, and they should take back their statements,” he said.

Another BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Mr. Nitish Kumar and his party should not politicise everything.

According to information accessed by The Hindu, Ishrat had spent her childhood at Jamalpur in Munger district in Bihar where she studied up to Std. II in St. Roberts School. At that time, her maternal grandfather, Abdul Majid, was working at the Jamalpur railway factory. Later, he went to Alamganj in Patna. Ishrat’s grandparents were living at Khagaul, near Patna, and her father Shamim Raza started a business in Patna but shifted his base to Mumbai.

JD(U) leader Ali Anwar said: “David Headley is not Yudhistra… Give him Padma Bhushan or any other award for whatever he has said.”

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Technical snag in video conference adjourns Headley’s deposition

The deposition of American-Pakistani terrorist David Coleman Headley on Wednesday has been adjourned til tomorrow due to a technical snag in the video conference.

Headley was to depose for the third consecutive day before a court here in connection with 26/11 terror attack case.

Special public prosecutor, who is presently examining Headley, said that the deposition has been adjourned till tomorrow due to a technical snag from the U.S side.

Deposing from an undisclosed location for the past two days, Headley had told the special judge G.A. Sanap that ISI was helping different terror outfits in Pakistan by providing financial, military and moral support.

He also revealed that plans to target Mumbai had started over a year before November 26, 2008 and that LeT initially wanted to attack a conference of Indian defence scientists at Taj Mahal Hotel for which even a dummy of the hotel was prepared.

But the plan to target scientists was dropped because of logistical reasons, like difficulty in smuggling in weapons and personal and lack of details about the schedule of the meet, he said.

About plan to target Siddhivinayak Temple, Headley said that Sajid Mir (Headley’s handler in LeT) specifically asked him to make video of it.

Headley also said that he also used to work for ISI and met many Pakistan army officials.

1 Lashkar operative David Headley named Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed as the head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
2 Notably, Headley named Major Ali and Major Iqbal of the ISI and Lashkar commander Sajid Mir as his contacts in Pakistan.
3 He also said the 10 people involved in the 26/11 attacks had made two previous attempts on Mumbai. The first, in September 2008, failed as the boat, which started from outside Karachi, ran into some rocks and sank. The weapons and explosives were lost in the sea. The second attempt took place a month later. It was Mir who informed Headley of the two attempts.
4 Headley said he had joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002 “for a course” in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan, the outfit’s headquarters. He underwent Daura-e-Am (preliminary training) and Daura-e-Khas (advanced training in weapons and explosives). Another camp called Daura-e-Ribbat (intelligence course) was held in Mansehra, 40 miles from Abbottabad, where Saeed and Lakhvi were present.
5 Headley described Lashkar as “a militant organisation in Pakistan whose goal is to fight the Indian Army and assist the people of Kashmir.” Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi would give religious speeches and speak of ‘jihad,’ defined as “fight against enemies of Islam.” They, Headley said, treated India as their enemy.
6 In October 2003, Headley met Maulana Masood Mazhar, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed, about three hundred miles away from South Lahore. Headley also met with Zakir Ul Rehman Lakhvi in 2003 at Muzzafarbad.
7 Headley admits that LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen are working under United Jihad council, and that all these are terrorist organisations in Pakistan working against India.
8 Headley says he was asked by LeT to gather military intelligence in India and also recruit someone from Indian military for spying.
9 Headley then says he was asked to make a general video and recce of Mumbai by Major Iqbal from the ISI.
10 In the deposition, Headley reveals that in the Spring of 2006, a meeting was held where LeT members Muzzabil Butt, Sajid Mir and Abu Khaffa were present. It was then decided that from Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, Mumbai was chosen to set up an office.

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