Victims’ anger after Pakistan frees claimed leader of Mumbai attacks
Pakistan’s decision to release Hafiz Saeed from house arrest has stoked anger among the victims of the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, which he is said to have planned.
Saeed leads Jamaat-udDawa, which purports to be a charity but is considered by India and the US to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group the two countries and the EU have designated as a terrorist organisation.
He was released on Friday after 10 months of house arrest and just two days before the ninth anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, which lasted from November 26 to 29.
Ten terrorists, arriving in Mumbai from Pakistan, carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks across the city in which 166 people died and more than 600 were injured.
The only attacker captured alive, Ajmal Kasab, admitted to being from Lashkar-e-Taiba. He was hanged by India in November 2012.
India and the US have pressed Pakistan to punish Saeed, but Islamabad has said the evidence provided by Delhi is not strong enough to put him on trial.
The longer Saeed stays free, the longer justice fails to be done, said Selvan Durairaj. His brother Jaykumar, 33, from Tamil Nadu, was killed at the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway terminus in Mumbai.
Jaykumar had travelled to Mumbai for a holiday and was shot twice on the first day of the attacks.
The bullets that killed him may well have come from Kasab’s gun, police told his brother when he went to Mumbai to collect Jaykumar’s body.
At the time of Kasab’s hanging, Mr Durairaj had begun to feel “a little sorry for him”, he said. “It is never pleasant to take a life.”
Besides, Kasab was only a pawn in a larger game of terrorism that was being played out of Pakistan, he said.
“The more I read about these things, the more I realise that it’s the people sitting in Pakistan who plan these kinds of attacks,” Mr Durairaj said.
“They’re the ones who really deserve the maximum punishment.”
But Saeed’s release showed that Pakistan was reluctant to act against terrorists, he said.
“So many countries have found that Lashkar-e-Taiba is a terrorist group. So much evidence is there,” Mr Durairaj said.
“If the Pakistani government lets him go in this manner, then they must somehow be involved in terrorism, I think.”
Mukesh Agrawal, who was shot twice at the cafe he ran into at the Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus food court, said news of Saeed’s release was dispiriting.
Mr Agrawal’s interest in Saeed was sparked when the US government offered a US$10 million (Dh36.7m) bounty for information leading to his arrest, in 2012.
He followed Saeed’s fortunes closely and saw last Thursday that he was due to be released.
“This weekend I’ve just been at home, because it was 26/11 [the anniversary of the attacks],” Mr Agrawal said. “I haven’t even turned on the television to see what has happened since Saeed’s release.”
The prospect of justice now seems remote to him, after having been briefly encouraged when the government of Donald Trump in July withheld $350m in defence funding to Pakistan.
The decision followed a US state department report that Pakistan “did not take substantial action” against terrorist networks operating from its soil.
But last month, the US senate unlinked the funding from Pakistan’s success in curbing the Lashkar-e-Taiba, paving the way for Saeed’s release.
That senate decision came as a surprise, Mr Agrawal said.
“It almost seems as if no government can touch Pakistan in any way,” he said.
Mr Agrawal was realistic about India’s ability to influence the trial process in Islamabad.
Kasab was hanged only after four years of trials and appeals in Mumbai, so he assumed that it would take far longer to persuade Pakistan to try and punish its citizens.
Even so, he is disappointed by India’s efforts to pressure the Pakistani government to bring Saeed to trial.
“It feels like the issue is just slipping away altogether now,” Mr Agrawal said.
“It feels like there’s no point in even discussing it.”
It almost seems as if no government can touch Pakistan in any way MUKESH AGRAWAL Victim of the 2008 Mumbai attacks