On 6 March 2017, the Twittersphere in New Delhi lit up with the claim that Major-General (Retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani confessed that the Mumbai attacks of 2008 were executed by a terrorist group in Pakistan.

In the pieces that India’s various media ran, his ostensible honesty was greeted with endless enthusiasm. After all, Durrani served as Pakistan’s National Security Advisor (NSA) for (gasp) more than eight months between 1 May 2008 and 10 January 2009. He was the NSA when the attacks happened and he even risked the wrath of the State by admitting that Ajmal Kasab – the lone surviving terrorist – was Pakistani.

He admitted this long after a brave journalist had already interviewed his father near Okara in Pakistan’s Punjab province. This was a form of quasi-validation that many Indians were waiting to hear from someone who was in office when the tragedy took place. Unfortunately, there is little to be celebrated in what he said. Indians, and indeed, the international community, deserve better than this.