IF the capture of Lashkar terrorist Syed Zabihuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, the main handler of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, by Indian authorities was not enough the media mix-up about the release of Sarabjit Singh in place of Surjeet Singh had only raised heckles against Pakistan even as the political turmoil in the neighbouring country only worsened in the last few days.
The investigations into Pakistan’s complicity in terror attacks in India now involve sleuths in Europe and the US more because the activities are coordinated by various terror cells all over the world. There have been many undercover reports of Pakistan’s hand in introducing forged Indian currency in many parts of the country which could have contributed to the slump in the value of the rupee in the recent past, especially when the currencies of India’s neighbours have not suffered as much.
The award-winning documentary The Perfect Terrorist written, produced and directed by Thomas Jennings along with correspondent Sebastian Rotella has all the makings of an in-depth report on how Dawood Syed Gilani, the American-born Pakistani who later changed his name to David Coleman Headley, masterminded the Mumbai attacks in November 2008.
It goes without saying that the arrest of Abu Jundal in India had a huge helping from the US as Saudi authorities overruled Pakistani objections before bundling up the man and sending him to India to bring him to justice.
From all these fast-paced developments in the last few days one thing becomes clear that India has its hands full when it comes to collating evidence, investigating deeper into the links between the Pakistan’s ISI, its rogue army and terror outfits and deducing the right conclusions to hold all the responsible parties in a court of law in India or abroad.
What should come as a surprise for many of the observers of Pakistan’s shenanigans is the overwhelming evidence of its complicity from various sources all over the world, and the nicer details which are corroborated by new additions like Abu Jundal. At many places, what Abu Jundal has confessed to are almost verbatim to what Thomas Jennings reveals in his documentary. Quite incidentally, Abu Jundal is the first of the 50 most-wanted list which India had presented to Pakistan.
On the other hand, the activities of prime suspects in terror activities in India like Abu Jundal, just as Dawood Ibrahim, who were born and brought up in India, and the repeated averment by Pakistan that Dawood Syed Gilani is an American citizen while Abu Jundal is an Indian citizen, flies in the face of the claims by prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh on several occasions that terror activities are wholly imported and there are no sleeper cells in India.
Also, most of the perpetrators of terror crimes in India, as much as in other parts of the world, belong to well-to-do families who have thriving businesses, making the most of the capitalist system, with girlfriends and lifestyles to match. The conventional thinking that terrorists are born out of poverty and destitution is good Bollywood scriptwriting but far removed from the truth.
