LAHORE: The 70-page Indian dossier provided to Pakistan last week as evidence of the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s role in the Mumbai terror attacks, urges Islamabad to hand over the conspirators to face justice in India, dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan, prevent further terrorist attacks from the Pakistan soil and to adhere to all bilateral, multilateral and international obligations to take the Mumbai attackers to task.
While a Lashkar-e-Toiba spokesman has already rejected the Indian document as a pack of white lies, a foreign office spokesman said the Pakistani authorities are still examining the dossier and their reaction is expected shortly. The much talked about Indian dossier titled “Mumbai Terrorist Attacks (Nov.26-29, 2008), states on page 13: “The evidence gathered so far unmistakably point to the territory of Pakistan as a source of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai between November 26 and 29, 2008. It is abundantly clear that senior functionaries of the LeT were the controllers/handlers of the ten terrorists. The evidence clearly establishes that the terrorists were chosen, trained, dispatched, controlled and guided by the LeT which is the organization responsible for terrorist attacks in Mumbai”.
The dossier seems to have been drafted with a view to achieve several Indian objectives. It seeks to demonstrate that all the ten terrorists had traveled from Karachi to Mumbai. The dossier states the lone surviving attacker Mohammad Ajmal Kasab has disclosed the names and identities of the other nine Mumbai attackers who were killed by Indian security forces in the gun battle. It describes all the nine terrorists as Pakistani nationals – Ismail Khan (25) from Dera Ismail Khan, Babar Imran alias Abu Akasha (25) from Multan, Naser alias Abu Umar (23) from Faisalabad, Shoaib alias Abu Saheb (21) from Sialkot, Nazir alias Abu Umer (28) from Faisalabad, Hafiz Arshad alias Abu Abdar Rehman Bara (23) from Multan, Javed alias Abu Ali (22) from Okara, Abdur Rehman alias Abu Abdar Rehman Chhota (21), and Fahadullah (23) from Okara.
epany B and imported into Pakistan and sistributed byred by Yama Motor Corp been retrieved by the investigators. The evidence contains photographs of materials found on the fishing trawler, from a bottle of Mountain Dew packaged in Karachi to Diamond-brand pistols that bore the markings of a gun manufacturer in Peshawar to a Pakistani-made matchbox, dried milk powder packet (Nestle), sogo spray paint, detergent powder and tubes of Medicam tooth paste and Touch Me shaving cream. The dossier includes pictures of a Yamaha outboard motor which was used during the sea journey and was allegedly sold by a Pakistan distributor. “An attempt was made by the terrorists to erase the engine number but it has been retrieved by the investigators. The outboard motor number is 67 CL-1020015, which is manufactured by Yamaha Motor Corp, Japan and imported into Pakistan and distributed by a company ‘Business & Engineering Trends’, located at No 24, Habibullah Road, Davis Road Lahore”.
In a bid to rally international support for ongoing Indian efforts to squeeze Pakistan, the dossier highlights a list of 25 foreigners killed in the Mumbai attacks, including 17 men and 08 women. Those killed in Mumbai included four Israeli, three American, three German, two French, two Canadian, two Australian nationals and one national each of Britain, Japan, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Thailand and Mauritius. The dossier narrates a journey of passion by the Mumbai attackers whose blow-by-blow media coverage was reportedly being followed by their handlers, who were apprising the gunmen on the ground about the movement of Indian security forces besides motivating them to keep fighting.
The dossier states that the Lashkar-e-Toiba initially trained 32 terrorists for the Mumbai terror attacks. “Of these, 13 were short listed following a rigorous selection procedure. Six were then sent away to a still unknown destination and three new members joined, taking the group’s membership to 10. Among the new faces was Ismail Khan, who led the assault. Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, aka Chachaji or Chachu, the supreme commander of the LeT, has repeatedly been named in the dossier as the chief planner. “His role in the Mumbai attacks was confirmed by Mohammad Ajmal Kasab during interrogation. It was Zaki Lakhvi who planned and executed the plot with his operations chief, Yusuf Muzammil”, the Indian report states.
As per the dossier, the 10 men boarded a small boat in Karachi at 8 a.m. on November 22, sailed a short distance before boarding a bigger carrier called the Al-Husseini. “The following day, the 10 men took over an Indian fishing trawler, called the MV Kuber, killed four of its crew members, spared its captain, Amar Singh Solanki, and sailed 550 nautical miles across the Arabian Sea. Between November 22 and November 26, the Kuber maintained a distance of 60-80 NM from the Indian coast. The terrorists then plotted their way using four reference points referred to as JALA 1, 2, 3 and 4. Of these, the last two—JALA 3 was 4 NM off the Mumbai coast while the last reference point, JALA 4, was Budhwar Park where they landed. En route, the terrorists were in touch with their handlers via a Thuraya satellite phone (+8821655526412) using a code language”.
The dossier went on to say that each man had two-hour watch duties on board and each carried individual weapon packs: a Kalashnikov, a 9-millimeter pistol, ammunition, hand grenades and a bomb, weighing 8 kilograms and containing a military-grade explosive called RDX, steel ball bearings and a timer with instructions inscribed in Urdu. By 4 p.m. on November 26, the trawler approached the shores of Mumbai. The last four nautical miles to the Mumbai shore was covered in a dinghy after the Kuber was abandoned and its captain killed. They finally reached Mumbai at about 8:30 p.m., and in five teams of two, set upon their targets: the busiest railway station of the port city of Mumbai known as Victoria Terminus, a tourist haunt called Café Leopold, the Jewish center in Nariman House, and two luxury hotels, the Taj and Oberoi. However, going by the dossier, they made one mistake, which they told their handlers later on the phone – they left behind Ismail Khan’s satellite phone which was recovered by Indian investigators and its photograph included in the dossier.
Once in Mumbai, they went on a killing spree, all the while receiving detailed instructions and pep talks from their handlers. The dossier claims that the Mumbai attackers were being contacted from a virtual phone number which was 12012531824. This was generated by a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service based in the United States and paid for by a Javed Iqbal, who gave a Pakistani passport as proof of identity. The telephone conversations, selected transcripts of which have been compiled in the Indian dossier, record a steady exchange between the attackers in Mumbai and their handlers. The last call transcript, as reported in the dossier, was made at 10:26 p.m. on November 27 [between a gunman holding several Jews hostage inside the Nariman House]and his interlocutor. The handler is talking to his agent: “Brother you have to fight. This is a matter of the prestige of Islam”.
Everything is being recorded by the international media. Inflict the maximum damage. Keep fighting. Don’t be taken alive”, a caller has been quoted in the dossier as saying to a gunman inside the Oberoi Hotel close to 4 a.m. on the first day of the three-day siege. “Throw one of two grenades at the navy and police teams, which are outside”, one of the callers reportedly instructed to the gunmen inside the Taj Mahal Hotel. “Keep two magazines and three grenades aside and spend the rest of your ammunition”, went another set of instructions as per the dossier to the attackers inside the Nariman House, which housed an Orthodox Jewish center, on the second evening, with a directive to conclude the operation the next morning.
“There are three ministers and one secretary of the cabinet in your hotel. We don’t know in which room,” a caller tells a terrorist at the Taj at 0310 hrs on November 27, as per the dossier. “Oh! That is good news. It is the icing on the cake,” he replies. “Find those 3-4 persons and then get whatever you want from India”, he is instructed. “Pray that we find them,” he answers. At the Oberoi Hotel at 0353 hrs on November 27, a handler phones and says: “Brother Abdul. The media is comparing your action to 9/11. One senior police official has been killed.” In another call, to the Taj Maha Hotel this time, a handler says: “The ATS chief has been killed. Your work is very important. Allah is helping you. The Vazir (minister) should not escape. Try and set the place on fire.” By the morning of November 29, the Indian security forces had killed nine of the ten attackers besides arresting a wounded Ajmal Kasab alive, whose AK-47 fell out of his hands after being hit by a bullet.
In the second section of the dossier, India has pointed out the contradictory nature of the Pakistani response to the Mumbai attacks, Islamabad’s failure to respond appropriately to Indian requests for cooperation when evidence was provided in past about terrorist acts, and an outline of Pakistani bilateral and international commitments and obligations to take terrorists to task. The third and last section of the dossier contains an outline of what the Indian government expects Islamabad to do in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks. “This was a conspiracy launched from Pakistan. Gaps in knowledge can be filled by investigation and interrogation of conspirators there,” the dossier concludes.
However, a Lashkar-e-Toiba spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi has already rejected the Indian dossier as a baseless and cooked up document which is aimed at maligning the LeT and thus damaging the Kashmir freedom movement. “As no evidence could be found on the scene of the crime, there is a malicious effort to manufacture evidence thousands of miles away which is simply fictitious”, the spokesman had added. Approached for comments, a foreign office spokesman said, the Indian dossier in fact paints a one sided picture of the Mumbai attacks and the Pakistani authorities are examining it minutely to separate facts from fiction. The Pakistani response to the dossier is expected to be released in next few days, he added.
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