Time to get justice for Mumbai

The dramatic US operation to take out Osama bin Laden from a mansion in Pakistan’s Abbotabad invariably brings up memories of Mumbai’s own terror attacks and their links with Pakistan.

November 2008 comes up first of course, when for the first time we managed to capture a terrorist in the act and through him managed to expose all the lies told by Pakistan whenever it is confronted with evidence of its involvement on attacks on India.
The trial of the Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab was a triumph of the Indian justice system but his capture was a remarkable achievement by a beleaguered and bamboozled police force that was grappling not just with the deadly attacks but also the psychological impact of the deaths of senior and well-respected senior police officers. Tukaram Omble, by heroically sacrificing his own life to catch Kasab, has left us a debt which we can never repay, as a city, nation or society.

But before Kasab and his group of audacious killers crept into Mumbai via the sea from Pakistan, the city had already suffered the serial bomb blasts of March 1993 and after that the evidence that the blasts were a reaction to the horrific post-Babri demolition riots of December 1992 and January 1993. Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, once dreaded underworld dons, fled to Pakistan a few years before and had masterminded the blasts from that country. Members of Tiger Memon’s family who came back to India provided sufficient evidence of this.

As Pakistan denied for 10 years that Osama bin Laden was in their country it has also denied Ibrahim’s presence - despite all the evidence. Even when Ibrahim’s daughter married former Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad’s son, the Pakistani government took no action.

Now that Pakistan is under the world’s scanner after Osama was found living in a military town barely a km from its premier military academy, this is the ideal time for India to demand action on its list of most wanted criminals who have taken shelter there. Those who are baying for the blood of Kasab might remember that the planners and the masterminds of the Lashkar-e-Tayba — notably Hafiz Saeed - are roaming free in Pakistan. US ambassador to India Timothy Roemer has now demanded that Pakistan take action against Hafiz Saeed and reiterated the US’s commitment to helping India get justice for 26/11.

Cynical though it may sound, it was not until 2008 that the US and the world took India’s warnings about terrorist groups flourishing in Pakistan seriously. The Government of India must prove its solidarity with the sacrifices and the suffering of the people of Mumbai and take advantage of Pakistan’s current embarrassment so that we can also get our own taste of “justice”.