Mohammed Amir Ajmal has told the US FBI a different story altogether. Kashmir finds only a peripheral mention as a motive for his taking to terrorism.
If the western powers think that the Mumbai terror attacks were about Kashmir, they had better think again.
Mohammed Amir Ajmal, aka Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist to be captured after the Mumbai terror attacks, has told the US Federal Bureau of Investigation a different
story altogether.
Ajmal was interrogated in detail by a team of FBI officers around the first week of December. Sources familiar with the details said he told his interrogators that the main motive behind the Mumbai actions were American policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kashmir finds only a peripheral mention as a motive for his taking to terrorism.
Most western officials and analysts, especially the incoming Obama team and the British establishment, have tended to see a direct link between the Kashmir strife and the Mumbai attacks. British foreign secretary David Miliband, who was in India last week, said in an article on the eve of his visit that “resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistan to focus effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders.” India has been rubbishing the direct linkage between Kashmir and the Mumbai attacks.
Ajmal’s intensive interrogation by the FBI throws a different light on the cause of terrorism in Pakistan. American policy under George Bush, especially the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the “ill-treatment of Muslims” are cited as key reasons by him for his terrorist action. Ajmal also talks about illiteracy and joblessness as other reasons for so many youth taking to terrorism in Pakistan.
He says General Pervez Musharraf’s aggressive support for Bush’s policies also fuelled anti-American sentiments in Pakistan and was a factor in the growth of terrorism.
Details of the FBI interrogation show that Kashmir finds only a minor mention in Ajmal’s statements. The 10 Mumbai attackers, nine of whom were killed, were instructed to claim that they were fighting for the oppressed people of Gujarat and Kashmir in case they were contacted by the media or anyone else during the attack.
The FBI interrogated Ajmal in the presence of officials from the Mumbai Crime Branch, a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer and officers from the Intelligence Bureau. The FBI brought along a Punjabi translator. The interrogation, which started some time in the afternoon, went on beyond midnight, sources said. During the interrogation, the FBI officials and Ajmal shared a meal.
Indian officials who have studied Ajmal closely point out that he probably was an ‘accidental terrorist’. He had dropped out of school after class four in 2000, did some labour in his village and then shifted to Lahore, where his father was selling chaat. In 2005 - by when his father had shifted back to Faridkot - Ajmal had a fight with his father and ran away from home. During the days after that, when he was working in Lahore, he had come in touch with one Muzaffar. Both of them together decided to commit dacoity in Islamabad on a rich family. To do that well, the duo wanted to get arms training. It was with this intent that the terrorist who mowed down dozens of people at CST went to the Lashkar-e-Toiba camp. The rest, as they say, is recent history.
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