Once it had been ascertained that Pakistan was involved in the Mumbai atrocity, some concrete action should have been taken immediately to launch precision aerial attacks against the terrorist camps.

The terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan is the greatest terrorist danger to peace and security of the entire civilised world.
—Pranab Mukherjee, India’s External Affairs Minister

Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman, aka Qasab (Butcher, in the literal sense), the lone terrorist survivor of Mumbai’s 26/11 terror attack apprehended by security forces during the 60-hour action was singing like the proverbial canary in the interrogation cells of Arthur Road jail. Declaring himself a Pakistani national from Faridkot in Pakistan, he elaborated on how and where he was trained and tasked by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) to commit the ghastly crime. If that was not enough, fire arms and hand-grenades, cell phones and SIM-cards, even items of daily utility—milk powder, toothpaste, shaving creams and even toilet paper—had Pakistan written all over them. As the evidence poured in, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s demand for Pakistan to send ISI Chief Lt General Shuja Pasha to be part of the investigation was quickly agreed to by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari. In his exuberance (real or affected) to cooperate with the Indian government, Zardari had evidently forgotten to consult (read, take permission) from the top brass of the country’s military establishment. Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was reported to have commented contemptuously: Next, they (India) would be asking for me to go there.

Pakistani leaders were quick to move away from cooperating with India’s investigation into the Mumbai terror attacks, moving swiftly into what may best be described as a total state of denial. Plausible deniability is a most-practiced doctrine of Pakistan’s ISI-jehadi structure but the version it adopted in the wake of the Mumbai attacks was best dubbed by one of India’s leading news dailies in a single stinging word—Dubiya. A continuous stream of contradicting statements from the highest political leadership, eagerly aided by different levels of Pakistan media, has made such a mockery of the entire issue that it is getting more implausible by the day. President Zardari went to the extent of denying that Qasab was from Pakistan despite the latter’s own testimony corroborated by reports in the UK and Pakistani press based on interviews with his father who is a resident of Faridkot and who recognised his son from the photographs splashed in the media. That should have been enough to spark an investigation in Pakistan, but security agencies there have instead cracked down on dissenting voices and stopped the entry of journalists and outsiders into the area. Hamid Amir, Editor of Geo Channel in Islamabad, who dared to telecast Qasab’s father from Faridkot in Okara district identifying his son as the captured terrorist of 26/11, was slapped with a court case on December 19. I am being observed with great attention and no one has killed me yet, he said.

Working alongside Indian sleuths and with the aid of hightech investigative tools, the FBI has also collected clinching and incontrovertible proof that the Mumbai terror attack was planned on and launched from Pakistani soil and by Pakistanis. However, despite foolproof evidence and seemingly immune mounting international pressure to move against LeT terrorists responsible for 26/11, Islamabad relentlessly pursues operation cover-up. Even after a Pakistani official confirmed that Zarar Shah, an LeT kingpin picked up after 26/11, confessed that he helped plan the attacks, Islamabad refuses to acknowledge the stark truth staring in its face.