26/11 terror: What’s new in what Pakistan’s ex-NSA said? It’s time for Pakistan to act

More than eight years after the Mumbai mayhem, there is no end to vacillation by Pakistan despite clinching evidence presented by India many a time linking Pakistani terrorists to this act of savagery. In a damning disclosure that nails Pakistan’s role in 26/11 attacks, former Pakistan National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani has admitted that the Mumbai terror attack which left 166 people dead on November 26, 2008 was carried out by a terror group based in Pakistan in a classic case of cross-border terror attack. Durrani, however, gave a clean chit to the Pakistani government, saying it had no role in the Mumbai attacks. “26/11 Mumbai strike, carried out by a terror group based in Pakistan, was a classic trans-border terrorist event”,  said Mr Durrani, who was speaking at a conference on combating terrorism at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis in New Delhi. The former Pakistan NSA also hit out at Jamaat-Ud- Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the terror strike whose victims also included some foreigners in India’s financial and entertainment capital. “Hafiz Saeed has no utility, we should act against him,” Durrani said while alluding to JuD chief who was put under house arrest recently by the Pakistani authorities. India had earlier this month asked Pakistan to reinvestigate the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and to put on trial Hafiz Saeed who is currently under house arrest in Lahore under the country’s anti-terrorism law. India’s fresh demand came in response to Pakistan’s request to send 24 Indian witnesses to record their statements in the case. Under mounting international pressure, the Pakistan government had on January 30 put Saeed and four other leaders of JuD and Falah-e-Insaniat under house arrest in Lahore under the country’s anti-terrorism act. Saeed, who carries a reward of $10 million, had also been put under house arrest after Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008 but was freed by court in 2009. India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh had said on February 12 last year that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was behind the Mumbai attack and Islamabad should act against all those involved in it. Mr Singh’s predecessor P Chidambaram had said on June 28, 2012 that Pakistani state actors were involved in the 2008 carnage. India’s junior Home Minister Kiren Rijiju underlined New Delhi’s position on the 26/11 Mumbai attack is very well known and there is “nothing new” in what Mr Durrani said in Delhi.