Almost everything that Pakistani-American Dawood Gilani, who later changed his name to David Coleman Headley in order to be able to enter India unsuspected to scout for locations for ISI-sanctioned attacks by Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, has told a Mumbai court via video-conferencing from the US — in the context of the 26/11 attacks — was already known, and was in the public domain.
And yet, India, even with the help of the United States, has been unable to persuade Pakistan in the past eight years to wind up its use of terror proxies. As before, Pakistan has twisted and turned and squirmed and denied any links to terrorists on its soil. Indeed, the Pakistani military — which effectively runs the country — has emerged as a rugged backer of international terrorism by deploying every means to give it succour and cover from scrutiny, as the case of sheltering Osama bin Laden in a garrison town has amply shown.
In the circumstances it is unrealistic to expect that Islamabad would bow to the evidence given by Headley. The special merit of Headley’s deposition on Monday and Tuesday is that it has been made before a court of law under oath. But none of this has any practical significance.
Pakistan will take no cognisance of it and make up legal excuses as it has done in the case of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the LeT commander who directed the Mumbai attacks. Headley himself was a double agent — a LeT operative and a spy for the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
His work for American agencies helped him enter a plea bargain. Thus, he escaped the gallows and has only to serve out a 35-year sentence. Before he agreed to join court proceedings in India, he had to be given amnesty against extradition to India, and made an approver.
Since everything stays exactly as it was in the 26/11 case, and there are no signs of any progress in Pakistan’s internal investigation into the Pathankot attack, with Islamabad lately asserting that Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar was not involved with it, the Narendra Modi government’s options in respect of marking progress in re-establishing diplomatic links with Pakistan seem strictly limited.
In the event it seems quite pointless to embark on any form of “dossier diplomacy” with Pakistan, that appears to be among the steps being contemplated in sections of the government. Making a formal compilation of the testimony given by Headley to an Indian court for dispatch to Islamabad in the hope of making an impression there can only be a mad hatter’s idea. Inviting Pakistani “investigators” to India in the Pathankot context is another idea whose relevance is hard to fathom.
