FairPoint: Will Tahawwur Rana reveal the untold 26/11 story of local support?

New Delhi, April 13 (IANS) Tahawwur Rana is currently being interrogated by the NIA, and the entire nation -- even Pakistan -- is waiting to hear what he reveals or confesses. His links to Pakistan and the involvement of its state actors are well-known, but the 26/11 conspiracy is not just about that country. It is equally important to uncover who within India enabled these acts.

Who were the traitors? Even if it comes 16 years later, those who aided this horrific attack must be identified and exposed.

Rana's interrogation is expected to add crucial details to the investigation and potentially identify the names and agencies behind the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. This could significantly strengthen India's case against Pakistan.

However, what is most eagerly awaited is information about the support Rana and his team may have received within India. It is difficult to accept the theory -- as claimed by the state and central governments in 2008 -- that the attackers had no local assistance. Is it possible for individuals who have never been to a country to execute such precise and coordinated attacks without any local help?

Investigations so far suggest that Rana and his associate, Daood Gilani, alias David Coleman Headley, conducted reconnaissance and prepared detailed plans, which were followed meticulously by the ten Pakistani attackers. These terrorists hijacked the fishing boat, 'Kuber,' killed four of its crew members, and forced its captain, Amar Singh Solanki, to steer the vessel carrying ten Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives to the shores of Mumbai.

After reaching the coast, Solanki was killed, and the terrorists entered Mumbai, launching an unprecedented assault on India's financial capital.

On the night of November 26, 2008, ten heavily armed Pakistani terrorists struck simultaneously at five key locations in Mumbai, killing around 140 Indians and 25 foreign nationals. Their targets included two luxury hotels, a Jewish cultural centre, a popular cafe frequented by Western tourists, and Mumbai's main railway station -- CST -- where the highest number of casualties occurred.

Is it possible to carry out such an attack without any local support? This question was raised even back then, but clear answers are still lacking.

Mumbai Police had maintained that the role of local elements in the attack was limited to two alleged Indian Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives -- Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed. However, both were acquitted by a special court on May 3, 2010, and the Bombay High Court upheld their acquittal on February 21, 2011.

If they were not the local collaborators, then who were? Why did the Mumbai Police fail to uncover them?

In February 2009, BJP leader L.K. Advani, while speaking in the Lok Sabha during the debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address, criticised the investigation as incomplete. He called it "shameful" that the Mumbai Police gave a clean chit regarding any local involvement and demanded a judicial probe into the attacks.

The then Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, also criticised the UPA government, accusing it of making a half-hearted attempt to uncover the full conspiracy behind the Mumbai terror attacks. Modi argued that Pakistan could not have executed the attacks without local support, but the government failed to identify these collaborators.

In response, the Centre dismissed calls for a judicial commission to probe the local angle. Then Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram even mocked Modi's remarks, suggesting sarcastically that since both Pakistan and Modi were raising the same point about local involvement, someone should check if they were in touch with each other.

Such a response was seen by many as an attempt to deflect a serious question -- one that continues to perplex the nation.

Why the then-government did not thoroughly investigate the local angle remains baffling and raises several questions. It is difficult to believe that such a meticulously planned attack could have been executed without any support from within India.

Moreover, there were intelligence inputs about a possible attack via the sea route -- a fact that was raised in Parliament by the Opposition in 2009.

Interestingly, in testimony before the US House Homeland Security Committee on June 12, 2013, RAND Corporation, a leading US think-tank, stated that the 26/11 attackers "relied upon crucial domestic assistance" despite being of Pakistani origin.

The international community is well aware of the key Pakistani perpetrators -- Hafiz Saeed, founder of LeT; Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, LeT's operational commander; Sajid Majid; Illyas Kashmiri; Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed (aka Major Abdur Rehman or Pasha); Major Iqbal (alias Major Ali); and Major Sameer Ali (alias Major Samir) -- all believed to have been involved in planning, funding, and executing the attack. And then, there are the names of Tahawwur Rana and David Headley.

Rana's interrogation may lead to more revelations -- possibly names from Pakistan, Canada, or the US -- but the 26/11 conspiracy is beyond Pakistan. The conspiracy is also about the traitors in India who helped the perpetrators unleash terror and kill innocent people.

It is time that those faces be unmasked and brought to justice.

(Deepika Bhan can be contacted at deepika.b@ians.in)

--IANS

dpb/sd/