(Image source from: Pakistan’s investigator vouches Pakistan’s hand in 26/11 attack})

Pakistani investigator who has led the probe into the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks has said that the sleuths uncovered a raft of evidence linking the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to the carnage that was “planned and launched” from the Pakistani soil. Tariq Khosa, said that Pakistan has to deal with the fallout of the attacks and this will require “facing the truth and admitting mistakes”.

The training camp near Thatta in Sindh province, where the LeT terrorists were trained and launched by sea was identified and secured by the investigators. The casings of the explosive devices used in Mumbai were recovered from the same training camp and duly matched, Khosa  said.

The fishing trawler used by the attackers for hijacking an Indian trawler, in which they sailed to Mumbai, was brought back to a Pakistani harbour, and then painted and concealed. But it was recovered by the investigators and connected to the accused, Khosa wrote in the Dawn newspaper.

Ajmal Kasab, the lone attacker captured and subsequently executed in India, after his conviction, was a Pakistani national whose place of residence, initial schooling and his joining a banned militant group was established by investigators, he said.

The engine of the dinghy abandoned by the terrorists near the Mumbai harbour “contained a patent number through which the investigators have traced that it is imported from Japan to Lahore and then to a Karachi sports shop from where a LeT-linked militant purchased it along with the dinghy”, he added.

The money trail was followed and the accused who bought the engine was arrested. The “ops room” in Karachi, from where the attackers were directed, was identified and secured by investigators. Communications through voice over internet protocol (VoIP) were unearthed, Khosa said.

The alleged commander, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and his deputies were identified and arrested and a couple of foreign-based financiers and facilitators were arrested and brought to face trial, he wrote.

Now, it is the turn of Pakistan to deny all these allegations and paint the investigator Khosa as an agent of RAW. Pakistan is a rogue state which is a haven to the terrorist. The Pakistan Army and ISI are the host and trainer of the terrorists. The time is now ripe to term Pakistan as a terrorist friendly nation and impose sanctions against the rogue state.

By Premji