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| Under design Pak plays down Guru's hanging | | |
Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 11: For the second time, during the last three months, Islamabad and the print and electronic media in Pakistan have played down execution of the Parliament attack convict, Mohd Afzal Guru in Delhi on Saturday. The establishment in Islamabad and the print and electronic media in Pakistan had avoided giving any hype to the execution of a Pak national, Ajmal Kasab, in Delhi on November 21, on charge of his involvement in the deadly terrorist strike in Mumbai in 2008 in which about 166 people were killed.
It seems that official and non-official agencies in Pakistan preferred to play down the two events to avoid attracting bigger criticism from India and other countries for its involvement in providing moral and material support to Guru and Kasab for carrying out the armed attacks on the Parliament building in New Delhi and in India's financial centre, Mumbai. After the court verdict, awarding death sentences to Kasab and Guru, there is no room for any misgivings on direct support these terrorists received from agencies in Pakistan. Hence Islamabad thought it better to remain calm and composed as if the elimination of Kasab and Guru were internal affairs of India.
Islamabad and the Army in Pakistan had received flak from Washington and other countries for recent ceasefire violations and for carrying out killing of two Indian soldiers in Mendhar sector of Poonch in Jammu in a barbaric way which had heightened the border conflict. The border trouble had cast a shadow on the process of bilateral dialogue. An impression had surfaced indicating that New Delhi may be forced to choke the channels of dialogue. However, whether under pressure from Washington or from suggestions from saner elements in Islamabad the crisis were defused and Islamabad renewed its plea for resumption of talks for settling bilateral problems including the Kashmir issue. Hence Islamabad did not want to provide any opportunity to New Delhi to snap the channels of dialogue once it felt provoked by the sharp reaction from Pakistan against the execution of Kasab and Guru.
And again Islamabad is trying to be very cautious while commenting on India's demand for action against those Pak nationals who have been found to be involved in the Mumbai terrorist strike in 2008. This is the reason for Islamabad to take all pros and cons into consideration before sending its legal team to cross examine witnesses to the Mumbai terrorist attack. Reports have indicated that legal complications have delayed a Pakistani team's visit to India, scheduled for the second half of the current month, for recording statements of four Indian witnesses to the 2008 Mumbai attacks after the defence counsel sought written assurances for cross-examination of the witnesses. On Feb 2, the FIA had filed an application in the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC), seeking permission to join the proceedings of the commission constituted by the Mumbai High Court under Indian judge Amer Ahmed Khan to record statements of the witnesses against seven Pakistani suspects.
The Indian authorities had asked Pakistan to send a panel of lawyers in February for recording the statements of R.V. Sawant Waghule, who had recorded the confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab; Ramesh Mahale, chief investigation officer of the case; and doctors Ganesh Dhunraj and Chintaman Mohite, who had conducted post-mortem of the terrorists killed during the attacks. Khawaja Harris, defence counsel for the alleged mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, informed the ATC on Saturday that Indian Government's letter about recording the statements lacked clarity. It did not mention whether the witnesses would be cross-examined or not. He said the proceedings of last year's Mumbai commission had been declared illegal by the ATC because the defence team had not been allowed to cross-examine the witnesses
Well Pakistani lawyers, who will be sent to Mumbai, for cross examining the witnesses to Mumbai attack are supposed to secure proper assurances from the Government of India as far as the cross examination schedule was concerned. But instead of raising frivolous objections Pakistan should assist India in securing strict action against those Pak nationals who had masterminded the Mumbai terrorist strike and were roaming freely in Pakistan. In fact Delhi's main demand rests on strict action against Hafiz Saeed who, Delhi believes, had engineered the terrorist strike. It is but natural that the legal team from Pakistan will have the liberty of cross examining the Indian witnesses to the terrorist strike otherwise their job may not be to simply shake hands with the witnesses.
Hence there was no need for them to seek clarification from Delhi whether they would be allowed to cross examine the witnesses to the deadly strike. It seems that in this case too Pakistan has opted for dilly dallying tactics as it had been doing about granting MFN status to India. During the last over two years men who matter in Islamabad have even announced their decision on granting MFN status to India but nothing concrete has come out so far because both the Army authorities and those manning the ISI have urged Islamabad to delay granting MFN status to India. The same dilly dallying tactics are being adopted by Islamabad on India's demand for action against those Pak nationals who have aided and guided those who carried out the terrorist strike in Mumbai. If Islamabad wants to promote friendly and cordial ties with New Delhi it has to honour some of Delhi's demands which includes action against terrorists involved in Mumbai attack. If it does not respond it means Islamabad is playing in the hands of terrorists, extremists and fundamentalists. |
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