NEW DELHI: The conspiracy behind the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks of 2008 was set in motion as early as 2003 under the direction of top Pakistani military leaders General Pervez Musharraf, then-Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and later ISI chief, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha.
Despite repeated warnings from Indian intelligence officials, political pressure from figures like Congress’ Rajiv Shukla and Nationalist Congress president Sharad Pawar led to relaxed visa norms for Pakistani nationals during the 2005 India-Pakistan cricket series, a decision that opened the door to the devastating 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks including the entry into India of one of the main conspirators of the entire terror attack, Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Sajid Mir.
This critical oversight allowed Mir to infiltrate India under the guise of a cricket fan, setting in motion a meticulously planned conspiracy to cripple India economically.
Significantly, after the attack, Indian intelligence agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau had suggested that India should hit back strongly as the intelligence gathered by IB and other agencies had assessed that Pakistan was ill prepared to counter or defend itself against India’s military options.
However, the political leadership of the time decided not to act on this.
When Dr Manmohan Singh assumed office as Prime Minister in 2004, the Indian government started actively pursuing ways to better relations with Pakistan, both overtly and covertly.
In the pursuit of this, a bilateral cricket series was proposed that eventually materialized in March-April 2005, in which three test matches and six one day internationals were played across various parts of India.
However, this initiative was used by the Pakistani individuals named above to open a dangerous backdoor, officials said.
In the run-up to the series preparations, Pakistan insisted that visas should be granted to all Pakistani nationals, who wished to attend the matches in India, which was met with a sharp response from Indian security agencies.
Rajinder Kumar, an Indian Police Service officer of the Manipur-Tripura cadre of the 1979 batch and the then in-charge of Pakistan operations at the Intelligence Bureau (IB), vehemently opposed granting visas en masse to Pakistani nationals, without thorough verification as the political leaders had proposed. However, despite the security concerns raised by Kumar in clear words, and supported by representatives of other agencies silently, political pressure prevailed.
Senior political figures such as Congress’ Rajiv Shukla and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar lobbied with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), then headed by Shivraj Patil, to ease visa norms for Pakistani “cricket lovers.”
In a secure secret meeting held on the issue—attended by Shukla, despite having no official role—Rajinder Kumar walked out in protest after the MHA top bosses decided to go with the “good will” arguments of the political heads, while ignoring the reasons Kumar, as a representative of the IB, had put on record.
Eventually, the MHA permitted hundreds of Pakistani nationals to enter India.
Home Ministry sources from that period confirmed that the Intelligence Bureau, represented by then-Joint Director Rajinder Kumar, strongly opposed the mass issuance of visas.
Kumar, who retired in 2013, confirmed to The Sunday Guardian the developments in that meeting.
Later, as Kumar had predicted and warned, over 100 Pakistani nationals went underground; some were later apprehended by Indian security agencies on charges of espionage.
Notably, among those who entered India at that time was Sajid Mir, the deputy chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba and the prime handler of the 26/11 attacks. During his stay, he conducted reconnaissance of key locations in Mumbai during this period much before David Coleman Headley had started visiting India in pursuance of the said conspiracy.
The picture of Mir that is available with the Indian agencies, and often used in the media reports, was presented by him at the Amritsar border check post while entering India during the cricket series.
Mir, believed to be in Pakistan, is still on the US FBI’s “Most Wanted: list for his role in the Mumbai attack and carries a reward of $5 million on his head.
After the attack, the Indian intelligence agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau when asked for their assessment, said that their intelligence suggested that Pakistan had no capacity to respond to India’s response and India should retaliate and hit
As per sources, Pakistan’s civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani—who assumed office in September 2008—was reportedly unaware of the impending attack on Mumbai. The entire 26/11 planning was held tightly within Pakistan’s military-intelligence elite, including Musharraf, Kayani, and ISI chief Shuja Pasha.
According to officials who unravelled the entire controversy post the attack, the terror strike on Mumbai was not a last-minute operation or something that was weaved in a matter of months.
It was a multi-year effort involving meticulous planning, false identities, and a global terror network. The use of the 2005 cricket series as a Trojan Horse for infiltration to do recce highlights the complex, calculated nature of the conspiracy.
The broader strategy of Pakistani military strategists including Musharraf, Kayani and Pasha, as inferred by Indian intelligence analysts later, was rooted in the belief that India lacked the political will to retaliate in a meaningful way as was seen during the Parliament attack and the Kargil intrusion. Hence, they decided to launch a high-impact terror attack aimed at destabilizing India’s economy and its sense of national security.
Their assessment proved correct as there was no retaliation from India.
In April 2005, Pawar was serving as the Union Minister of Agriculture and was also deeply involved in cricket administration while gearing up to contest the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president’s election, which he won later that year in November 2005. Shukla, at the time, was a Rajya Sabha member.
When the attack took place, Musharraf had already resigned as President of Pakistan in August 2008, and was living in Pakistan. He passed away in February 2023, in Dubai after prolonged illness. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani retired as Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff in November 2013. Ahmed Shuja Pasha too retired as Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in March 2012.
Responding to the Sunday Guardian queries, Shukla said that he had no role in ensuring VISA for Pakistani nationals during the 2005 series.
“Regarding the 2004 series where India went to Pakistan, I helped get the approvals, and a security meeting was arranged for the players with officers. Yashowardhan Azad went to Pakistan in this regard. In 2005, when Pakistan came here, I don’t know how visas are approved; that’s done by the ministry, the Sports Ministry sends it (applications), they handle it. My decision doesn’t factor into that. I was there in 2004 for the visa process and the security meeting at Taj Mansingh. I wasn’t there in 2005, nor did I speak to anyone. What I think is that since the 2004 India visit to Pakistan was very successful, the Government of India in 2005 gave visas to everyone. There was no effort (to facilitate VISA for Pakistan nationals) from the BCCI. At that time, the coordination from the team’s side was being done by Amrit Mathur and Yashovardhan Azad. I had no role.”