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ISI pushed Pak on back foot
It paid Rs 25 lakh to LeT to buy boat for 26/11 attack: Headley
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 16
Irrefutable evidence on involvement of Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) in planning and executing the Mumbai attack led to the breakdown of talks between India and Pakistan.

Lodged in a Chicago jail, terror suspect David Coleman Headley recently told Indian investigators that the ISI gave him Rs 25 lakh to procure a boat in which the 10 terrorists sailed from Karachi to Mumbai in November 2008. Headley, in the presence of US officials, also revealed that it was ISI that briefed him on various aspects of the plan.

The ‘clinching’ evidence that was presented to the Pakistan side sent it into a tizzy, said sources in the Home Ministry today. The ISI, headed by Lt Gen Shuja Pasha, has a large section of Pakistani Army regulars working for it. When India asked Pakistan to investigate the links between the ISI and Headley, the latter found itself on a sticky wicket.

Indian investigators have information that the ISI chief had met one of the handlers of the Mumbai attack, Sajjid Mir, currently lodged in a Pakistani jail. This probably rattled Pakistan the most, besides the interrogation report of David Coleman Headley.

According to sources, “key elements” in Pakistan were looking to derail the Home Minister-level talks that took place in last week of June. Pakistan’s strategy was to avoid taking action against terrorist groups like the Pakistani Taliban. It even denied that infiltration was taking place in Jammu and Kashmir during the talks. The Pakistan said that it can’t pick and choose which terrorist organisations it will target and which it will not. It was also reluctant to act against Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of 26/11 and head of Jamaat-ud-Dawaa that is whipping up anti-India hysteria.

All this would impact the talks between the two foreign ministers slated for December, said sources, adding that India will keenly look for “outcomes”, especially on the terror front.

Sources said Pakistan was not even keen on smoothening the trade between the two parts of J&K. At present a barter system is working while India wants trade through banks and suggested opening of a branch of an Indian Bank in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) while allowing a Pakistan bank to open a branch in India.