26/11: Pak still in denial

It’s a pity that the Pakistan interior ministry has removed the Federal Investigation Agency’s chief prosecutor, Choudhury Asharful, in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case. He was asked to go as he wasn’t inclined to toe the government line. Pakistan would like to deny that its military and its dirty tricks spy agency ISI had anything to do with the Mumbai terror attack, in sending 10 trained Lashkar terrorists across by sea and killing 166 people. In its predictable actions, Pakistan doesn’t shock the world. But it’s surprising it can be so intransigent when the world knows what happened on November 26, 2008. The case has dragged on nine years without direction in a special Pakistani fast-track court, but obfuscation has been the main aim as Islamabad insists on testimony by 24 Indian witnesses on its soil, a difficult condition to fulfil in the circumstances.

What must shock the world, however, is that when even North Korea’s dictator is willing to cross the DMZ and walk into South Korea, and India and China meet to “reset” ties post-Doklam, Pakistan remains the fly in the ointment for world peace. Pakistan civil society may well wish to see a proper investigation of the 26/11 attack and admit the Army establishment’s guilt in exporting terror to India. Good relations with India remains anathema to the military and its top brass, the country’s real power centre. Its strenuous denial of Dawood Ibrahim’s presence on its soil despite international acceptance of this fact, only adds up to the conclusion that Pakistan isn’t keen on repairing its relationship with India.