Remembering those killed in Mumbai’s 26/11 attacks. India termed as “very unfortunate” Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi getting bail from a Pakistani court, while experts and former envoys to Pakistan evinced no surprise over the development, saying it was all part of a “pattern” and that Islamabad needs to decide which way it was going, especially after the terror attack on a Peshawar school.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh said at a press conference, “it is very unfortunate, and believe it should not have happened” and added that the evidence provided by India to Pakistan was “more than enough to nail him”.
He said the Pakistan government should appeal in a higher court and get the bail cancelled.
The external affairs ministry said the bail would “serve as a reassurance to terrorists who perpetrate heinous crimes” and called upon Pakistan to immediately take steps to reverse the decision.
Former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, G. Parthasarathy said he was “not surprised in least” at the Lashkar-e-Taiba top operative getting bail.
“The LeT enjoys not only patronage of the Pakistani army but also Prime Minister (Nawaz) Sharif, who has had a long-time relationship with (LeT chief and 26/11 mastermind) Hafiz Saeed extending for years.
“He (Saeed) received patronage I know when I was high commissioner from then prime minister Sharif, and even now in his third term, his brother Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab, is funding the Lashkar.
“You can draw your conclusions from this,” he said.
Lakhvi, one of the main accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attack case, was granted bail Thursday by an anti-terrorism court in Islamabad.
He is among the seven people charged with planning and helping to carry out the Nov 26, 2008, Mumbai terror attack, which left at least 166 people dead.
Former envoy T.C.A. Rangachari said: “This is part of a pattern.”
He said Sharif in his statement to the UN General Assembly in September spoke at length of his government’s commitment to fighting terrorism and after the Peshawar school attack, he said his government will not differentiate between good and bad terrorism, but now bail has been granted to Lakhvi.
“Pakistan has to make up its mind which way it is going,” he said.
Noted strategic expert, Commodore Uday Bhaskar (retd.) too said the development was part of a pattern and should not come as a surprise. “Since the case was admitted in 2009, the Pakistani judiciary has been going slow – the pattern has been of delays and obfuscation. And they have constantly said that evidence presented by India is not enough or clinching enough.
“They are trying to deny certain realities. This is not a surprise, as for a state that sponsors and supports terror groups like the Lashkar expecting that they would deliver justice is a bit far-fetched,” Bhaskar, director of think tank Society for Policy Studies, said.
He said that in India, a lot of expectations were raised that Pakistan would indeed act against terror following the Peshawar school attack in which over 130 school children were shot dead. “But in reality, I would suggest that the Pakistani ‘deep state’ is not ready to bite the bullet and distance itself from groups like the Lashkar,” he said.
He said the Pakistani judiciary has also been intimidated while taking up cases of terror, and that judges have had to flee the country following death threats to them or their family or withdraw from tackling terror cases.
According to him, the executive in Pakistan has failed to support the judiciary whenever cases of terrorism came up in court.
“And that is where the executive has failed, and this is what we mean by ‘deep state’. The executive has not stood by the judiciary when such cases have been tried. The army is part of the deep state. If they wanted, they could have prevented the judges from being threatened.
“The whole support for the ideology of radicalisation and terror has become so deeply entrenched that the Pakistani establishment is unable to distance itself from it,” he said, adding that it could lead to more Peshawar-type attacks and even in India, “assets may be targeted”.