India
Updated : Dec 20, 2014, 07:34 AM IST
Even though a unanimous voice form India may have forced Pakistan on Friday to prevent the 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi a Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorist, to walk free from Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail, the government sources here say, Islamabad was still to walk miles to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in the country.
The horrendous killing of 132 children in Peshawar may have forced Pakistan's top leadership to declare that it was no longer willing to make any distinction between "good" and "bad" Taliban, but they (Islamabad) were still making differences between "good" and "bad" terrorist. Officials here feel it was unlikely that the Pesahwar incident would have any impact on India centric groups like the LeT and their mentors, even though, they were ready to give a leeway to Pakistan civil society and politics, if they are in a position to introspect and change course of their country towards peace and path of development, rather patronising terrorist groups.
Official sources here say another reason for their cynicism was the LeT's top commanders were being used in the North Western tribal regions to join Pakistan Army's campaign against the Taliban. They have created various "village defence committees" in the tribal regions of Bajaur, Dhir and Buner to work as voluntary pro-government counter-insurgents. According to them, many LeT commanders Sad Baba, Asad Khan, Bilal, Gazi Sultan and Huzefa have shifted to the region from Punjab to form armed groups to fight the Taliban. In Sulthankeil tribe in Khall town with 10,000 local recruits the LeT cadres are supposed to have repulsed many Taliban offensives.
Coinciding a unanimous resolution adopted by the Lok Sabha, Pakistan government under pressure said they will appeal to the Supreme Court against Lakhvi's bail. The resolution asked the prime minister Narendra Modi government to launch a diplomatic offensive to put pressure on Pakistan to bring this matter (26/11 trial) to a satisfactory conclusion. Lakhvi may now remain in jail under the Maintenance of Public Order act, a preventive detention law.
But former home secretary and now Lok Sabha MP RK Singh maintained that question was more about the attitude of Pakistan military and its spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). He reminded that during investigations name of a Major Iqbal had cropped up, who had trained David Headley the techniques of surveillance and counterintelligence.