by Amir Mir
LAHORE: In a major development, Pakistan’s leading English daily ‘Dawn’ has confirmed for the first time the findings of the Indian authorities that the lone Mumbai attacker arrested alive after the carnage happens to be a Pakistani national.
A front page story by the newspaper has reported that during the course of Dawn’s own investigations, the team of its reporters that was dispatched to Faridkot was finally able to locate a family which claimed to be the kin of Ajmal Kasab – the sole survivor among the 10 Mumbai attackers. The special team of reporters was dispatched to ascertain the veracity of Indian government claims that the attacker was a Pakistani national from the Faridkot area near Deepalpur district of Punjab. The Dawn report stated that its reporters met one Amir Kasab in the courtyard of his house in Faridkot, a village of about 2,500 people just a few kilometres from Deepalpur on the way to Kasur, who confirmed that he was the father of the young man (Ajmal Kasab) whose face had been beamed over the media was his son.
“For the next few minutes, the fifty-something man of medium build agonized over the reality that took time sinking in, amid sobs complaining about the raw deal the fate had given him and his family”, the Dawn report states, while quoting him as saying: “I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son. But now I have accepted it. This is the truth. I have seen the picture in the newspaper. This is my son Ajmal”, said Amir Kasab, the father of three sons and two daughters, adding that he disappeared from home four years ago after I failed to provide him new clothes on Eid, making him angry.
Th newspaper report states: “While Amir was talking, Ajmal’s two sisters and a younger brother were lurking about. To Amir’s right [on a nearby charpoy]sat their mother, wrapped in a chador and in a world of her own. Her trance was broken as the small picture of Ajmal lying in a Mumbai hospital was shown around. They appeared to have identified their son. The mother shrunk back in her chador but the father said he had no problem in talking about the subject. Amir Kasab said he had settled in Faridkot after arriving from the nearby Haveli Lakha many years ago. He owned the house and made his earnings by selling pakoras in the streets of the village. He modestly pointed to a hand-cart in one corner of the courtyard.
“This is all I have. I shifted back to the village after doing the same job in Lahore. My eldest son, Afzal, is also back after a stint in Lahore. He is out working in the fields”, said Amir Kasab while calling the people who snatched Ajmal from him his enemies. Asked why he didn’t look for his son all this while, he counters: “What could I do with the few resources that I had?”, he is reported to have stated. Otherwise quite forthcoming in his answers, Amir was a bit agitated at the mention of the link between his son’s actions and money. Indian media has claimed that Ajmal’s handlers had promised him that his family will be compensated with Rs150,000 (one and a half lakh) after the completion of the Mumbai mission. “I don’t sell my sons,” he retorts.
Journalists visiting Faridkot since Dawn reporters were at the village say the family has moved from their home and some relatives now live in the house. Perhaps fearing a media invasion, nobody is willing to say where the family has gone.
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