Mumbai terror attack: Pak’’s admission a clever diversion of the case?

February 12th, 2009
thaindian.com



Islamabad, Feb.12 (ANI): The Pakistan Government’’s admission on Thursday that terrorists involved in the attack Mumbai on November 26, 2008, planned some of the strategy in Pakistan, should be seen as “well timed and a clever diversion of the case”.
According to one analysis, the disclosure made by Rehman Malik, the Pakistan Prime Minister’’s Adviser on Interior Affairs, is “well timed” because it has come at a time when President Barack Obama’’s Special Envoy on Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, is due to visit New Delhi.
Rehman’’s portrayal of both Pakistan and India being joint victims of terror, the analysis says has a twin objective — (1) To show Islamabad’’s sincerity and desire to bring the perpetrators of the attack on Mumbai to justice, and in doing so, look good and cooperative, and (2) To convince other countries, including India, that the attack has the smackings of an international conspiracy involving “non-state actors”.
The questions posed by Malik during his press conference on Thursday, the analysis says, “will naturally take time to answer”, but it also suggests that the posers have been “designed to prolong the issue further”.
A reference to an Indian being involved in the bomb blast of the Samjhauta Express near Panipat, the analysis says is likely to queer the political and security pitch in the Indian subcontinent.
Will Pakistan allow a trial of its citizens in India? Will Islamabad seek Ajmal Amir Kasab’’s extradition for trial as per Pakistani laws? These are questions that still remain to be answered.
There is a view that the probe in the Mumbai attack case may just have the similar fate as the Daniel Pearl Case — “Nothing will happen”.
Pakistan, according to the analysis, “has bought time and India will be told to cooperate.”