26/11 terror attacks: The Taj Palace in Mumbai, one of the several sites attacked by terrorists on November 26, 2008 26/11 terror attacks: The Taj Palace in Mumbai, one of the several sites attacked by terrorists on November 26, 2008

In what could be a turning point in the long drawn-out investigation into the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case, Tariq M Khosa, former Director General of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, has pointed to his country’s complicity in the case in an editorial in Dawn, an English-language newspaper in Pakistan.

This is the first time that an ex-top Pakistan police official has talked about the country’s involvement in the case. The editorial is also seen as expressly backing virtually every statement that India has made in the case.

“Pakistan has to deal with the Mumbai mayhem, planned and launched from its soil. This requires facing the truth and admitting mistakes. The entire state security apparatus must ensure that the perpetrators and masterminds of the ghastly terror attacks are brought to justice,” Khosa writes in the editorial.

Khosa, who supervised the 26/11 investigation, then goes on to present facts, which India has repeatedly stated to point to the close association that the perpetrators of the 26/11 carnage have with Pakistan.

In the editorial, Khosa admits that Ajmal Kasab, one of the ten terrorists who wreaked havoc on the streets of Mumbai on that night, was in fact a Pakistani national, whose place of residence and initial school was established by investigators. He also reveals that the terrorists, belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba were ‘given training near Thatta, Sindh and launched by sea from there.’

“The training camp was identified and secured by the investigators. The casings of the explosive devices used in Mumbai were recovered from this training camp and duly matched,” Khosa writes.

Khosa also writes that the operations room in Karachi, from where the mission was directed, ‘was also identified and secured by the investigators.’

After pointing out facts one by one, Khosa called for legal experts from both countries to ‘sit together rather than sulk and point fingers.’

Khosa’s editorial in Dawn comes at a time when Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a mastermind of the terror attacks, was given bail by a Pakistan court earlier in April this year amidst repeated reservations expressed by India. Six other accused — Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum– have been in Adiala Jail for nearly six years in connection with planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November, 2008, that claimed 166 lives. The case has been pending in the anti-terrorism court in Islamabad since 2009.

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