Police Commissioner Blames Pakistan for Mumbai Bombings
The Mumbai Commissioner has publically accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of masterminding the Mumbai bombings.
Hours after the broadcast of an interview in which Gen Musharraf claimed that the US and its allies would fail in their “war on terror” without the support of Pakistan and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the senior police officer in charge of the investigation into the bombings dropped a diplomatic bombshell.
Mumbai police commissioner AN Roy said the ISI began planning the July attack in March and later provided training to the Islamic militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, that carried it out.
What’s more distressing is that this public accusation seems to be based on rather dubious evidence.
Mr Roy said many of the suspects had been trained to resist interrogation and that investigators had managed to elicit the information only by drugging them with a “truth serum”.
To be honest, despite the constant tensions between India and Pakistan, I would be extremely surprised to find out that Pakistan’s government was behind the Mumbai bombings. I doubt that they would risk a full blown war that could eventually involve a nuclear exchange. That is not to say, though, that no members of the Pakistani government were involved.
At the present time, though, I’m doubtful that the truth will be known. In the meantime, let’s hope that tensions between the two countries don’t spiral out of control as a result of this accusation.
It’s going come down to how you define “Pakistani government”. The ISI has much the makings of a rogue agency, operating outside the orders of the Prime Minister and parliament when it sees fit to do so.
But, since they are in fact an element of the Pakistani gov’t, it’s not a stretch to lay this at the feet of the “Pakistani government”.
It’s not exactly right, but close enough for propaganda purposes. It should also serve as a push to get the ISI under government control. That, I think, is the Indian government’s intention.
Aw, snap. I too don’t think Pakistan (even a rogue group of the Pak gov’t) would be crazy enough to do this, but the fact that folks are flinging about such stark accusation in public does not bode well for the subcontinent…