With the acquittal of 2 locals held for helping the terrorists, question remains if 10 Pakistanis unleashed carnage on their own.
One question which the Mumbai police or Indian security agencies have not been able to answer satisfactorily is that of the local support which the 10 terrorists might have got in the November 26, 2008, terror attacks.
Apart from David Coleman Headley, who had allegedly recced the targets, there has been no clarity on local support. After the special court acquitted Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, the Mumbai police’s theory of the duo having helped the terrorists fell apart.
Immediately after the attacks, security agencies were trying to find out a local connection. “It was difficult to comprehend that 10 terrorists who have never set foot in India or Mumbai, barged into the city, chose prominent targets and attacked and killed so many people,” said a central intelligence officer.
Another officer argued that if Tukaram Ombale had not caught Mohammed Ajmal Kasab alive then the Mumbai police would have found it difficult to even get a conviction in the case. “It was by sheer valour of Ombale that the Mumbai police got a crucial link to the attacks. Had Kasab been killed in the attacks, then the case would have never reached any conclusion,” the officer said. The Mumbai police would have also struggled to prove Pakistan’s and Lashkar-e-Toiba’s (LeT) involvement in the terror attacks.
Initially, Headley was nowhere in the picture and to show the crucial local link, the Mumbai police had arrested Ansari and Sabauddin. At the time of their arrest, Ansari and Sabauddin were lodged in a jail in Uttar Pradesh for their alleged involvement in the bombings of the CRPF camp in Rampur near Lucknow. According to the charge sheet filed by the Mumbai crime branch, Ansari had provided local information and given a map of the targets. However, the police failed to prove these claims in the court and Ansari and Sabauddin were acquitted, causing a major embarrassment to the Mumbai police.
There are several aspects on which the Mumbai police’s investigations have not touched. “The most important unanswered question is how did the terrorists know about Nariman (Chabad) house? Many local residents didn’t know about its existence,” the officer said.
Another crucial missing link is that when the police recovered one of the Global Positioning System from the abandoned dinghy, it had a pre-marked red spot somewhere near Uran. It indicates that the terrorists were scheduled to stop there before heading towards Mumbai. The charge sheet has no mention of this.
Months after the attacks, Headley was arrested in the US, his interrogations revealed that he had provided vital information to the LeT about the targets for the 26/11 attacks. “However, the Mumbai police will not be able to bring Headley to justice because the US is not going to give him to India,” said a former central intelligence officer.
He added that it would be a mistake to believe Headley’s version because he is a criminal. “He could be misleading investigators to suppress names of those who provided local support to the 26/11 terrorists,” the officer said.
“With Ansari and Sabauddin acquitted and Headley’s confessions which cannot be totally relied on, the question about local support still remains unanswered,” said a retired senior state police officer.
The missing links still missing
Even after five years of the terror attacks, the Mumbai police has failed to answer whether the 10 terrorists got local support. There are several aspects on which the Mumbai police’s investigations have not touched. “The most important unanswered question is how did the terrorists know about Nariman (Chabad) house? Many local residents didn’t know about its existence,” the officer said.
When the police recovered one of the GPS from the dinghy, it had a pre-marked red spot somewhere near Uran. It indicates that the terrorists were to stop there before heading towards Mumbai. The charge sheet has no mention of this.
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