ISI planners of Mumbai terror attacks yet to be brought to justice

NEW DELHI: Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Nadeem Taj and Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the three Pakistan Army officers, who headed Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), when the 26 November 2008 (26/11) Mumbai attacks were planned, and then executed 14 years ago, were never held accountable for their role despite it being abundantly clear that the ISI had executed the entire carnage by using the terror group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
As per the testimony by David Coleman Headley—a Lashkar terrorist, who carried out the surveillance of the possible terror targets in Mumbai—to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2009-2010, he was first informed of the task in October 2005. Subsequently, Headley made five trips to Mumbai—in September 2006, February and September 2007, and April and July 2008—to click pictures and record videos that were used by the ISI to plan the attacks. Kayani was DG ISI from October 2004 to September 2007. He was succeeded by Taj, who served as DG ISI from October 2007 to October 2008, during which advanced preparations for the Mumbai attack were done, while Pasha was heading the spy agency, when the attack was being executed by ten Lashkar terrorists with real time coordination from the ISI command centre in Pakistan.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which was born because of the Mumbai terror attack, in its charge-sheet had said that “Major Iqbal” and “Major Sameer Ali” of the ISI were coordinating with the 10 Lashkar terrorists even as the latter sprayed bullets and threw hand grenades on innocent people.
The Mumbai attacks, in ISI circles, are considered as among the most successful operations that the agency ever conducted. It was an operation that achieved the “desired” result and also ensured that not much of trail was left by the terrorists that could tie the attack to the ISI headquarters located at Aabpara, Islamabad.
The Sunday Guardian, in December 2011, had first broken the news of the NIA charge-sheeting two serving Pakistani Army officers for their role in the Mumbai terror attacks that killed 164 people. The NIA had named Major Iqbal, a Pakistan Intelligence Officer (PIO), who was identified by the NIA as the man who gave surveillance training to David Coleman Headley. He also provided financial assistance to him and collected the video surveillance tape that Headley had made before the attack.
The other ISI officer named in the charge-sheet was Major Sameer Ali, who was from the beginning involved in the whole operation. Apart from them, the NIA had named David Coleman Headley; Tahawurr Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen, who served as a doctor in the Pakistani Army; Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who is the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JD); Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the founding father of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) who is also the chief of the military wing of the LeT; Sajid Majid, a top LeT terrorist and handler of Headley; HuJI commander Ilyas Kashmiri; and Adbur Rehman Hashim Syed, a retired major from the Pakistan Army, who later joined the 313 brigade of HuJI.
The NIA’s investigation has also revealed that the plan to attack Mumbai was hatched in January 2005 by the LeT and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HuJI), which was established in 1992, with assistance from Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF). In its comprehensive investigation, in which more than 300 witnesses were examined and a huge amount of evidence collected, the NIA had proved the international nature of the conspiracy, which was cracked through collaboration with other nations and software companies.
In order to make a fool-proof case against the accused, the late Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Sanjeev Singh (1987 batch, Madhya Pradesh cadre, who passed away in 2020), who was then posted as the Inspector General of the NIA, had approached the software giant Microsoft and Hotmail to study the details of the conversation between David Coleman Headley and his Pakistani handlers. The NIA had found that Headley used many different email addresses for communicating with his accomplices, which included dark_pitman@yahoo.com, attorney1dave@yahoo.com, impervious2pain@yahoo.com, oblivious2pain@yahoo.com, rangers1dave@yahoo.com, gulati22@hotmail.com, haidergilani1@hotmail.com, sajjidiyas1@yahoo.com, khurramharoon1@yahoo.com, back4burton@gmail.com, daoodgilani@yahoo.com, to make sure that his conversation was not traced. Haidergillani1@hotmail.com was his most preferred email address to take instructions from his ISI handlers. The NIA has also submitted that Major Iqbal was available on the Pakistani number 3214528652. While Major Sameer was using 3445257300. Major Ali’s email address was jchadher@yahoo.com and chowdharykhan@yahoo.com. Major Sameer used the email address chsameerali@yahoo.com to converse with Headley.
However, 14 years later, both the two key ISI officers, who were actively involved in the attack, remain in Pakistan and have never been arrested. The entire 26/11 attack was put on the Lashkar, who were merely the foot soldiers. The brains behind this attack, the Kayanis, Tajs and Pashas were never held accountable by any domestic or international agency for carrying out one of the most gruesome terror attacks in the world.