The announcement that Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, aka Daood Gilani, has turned approver in the Mumbai terror case being heard by a Tada court in return for a pardon is a huge shot in the arm for India. The pardon ensures Headley may not face the death sentence in India. But the value of getting unfettered access to a self-confessed Lashkar-e-Tayyaba-ISI trained operative who cased Mumbai for Pakistan’s intelligence agencies well before the three days of carnage that terrorised Mumbai cannot be minimised. As anti-climactic as it may seem, and coming as it does seven years after the 26/11 attacks which has given the ISI more than ample time to cover its tracks, it should go a long way in bolstering the already strong case against Pakistan’s state actors committed to destabilising India. Delhi has submitted extensive dossiers detailing the roles played by Hafiz Saeed and other former and serving members of the LeT, the Pakistan military and ISI.
Cracking the VOIP code used by the ISI, it has voice recordings of a Major Sameer and a Major Iqbal — who was Headley’s handler — directing the shooters towards their targets. Much of the detailed information on the plot came after India’s repeated demand to interrogate Headley was finally granted in 2011. Yet Pakistan’s government has consistently denied its involvement. The latest effort to muddy the waters was to throw doubt on the identity of the lone surviving gunman, Ajmal Kasab, captured alive after his shooting spree was recorded by CCTV, and subsequently executed. Headley’s sudden interjection into the scene barely 24 hours after the Modi government agreed to resume long-stalled talks with its most problematic neighbour is, therefore, all the more interesting given its curious timing. This may be the quid pro quo from Washington that India’s savvy national security adviser, Ajit Doval, wanted in return for agreeing to talk to the Nawaz government.
But it also puts Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a difficult situation, as keeping his promise to pursue the Mumbai 2008 case more vigorously will set him up for a confrontation with the all-powerful establishment. Pakistan’s attempts to discredit Headley’s testimony, given the fact that as a double agent he played off his original interlocutors in the Drug Enforcement Agency in the US against his Pakistani handlers, is a given. But if Headley does help India present the world with clinching evidence of the ISI role in directing the Mumbai carnage while continuing to sustain terror cells aimed at its neighbours even today, Islamabad may be called to account on its hitherto empty promises to bottle the terror genie. And talks between Delhi and Islamabad haven’t even begun as yet!
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