Pak hesitantly accepts Kasab a Pakistani national

NI Wire

New Delhi

Thu, 08 Jan 2009: 

After weeks of incessant denials and flip-flops, Pakistan has finally accepted under mounting international pressure that Ajmal Kasab, the lone captured Mumbai perpetrator, is his national.

Pakistan's Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Sherry Rehman, made this disclosure before mia in Islamabad on Wednesday evening, ending weeks of continuous refusal on Kasab being a Pakistani national despite concrete evidence provided by New Delhi, including acceptance by Kasab himself before the Indian security agencies and by his father Noor Elahi before the Pakistani media.

“We are confirming he is a Pakistani national belonging to Faridkot village, but investigations are still going on,” said Sherry but refused to admit that Kasab had link with any official agency, while Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir had officially refused to confirm it. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had declared on Tuesday that Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI was involved in the deadly strike on Mumbai on Nov 26 last year.

However, New Delhi said that Pakistan had not officially confirmed acknowledging Kasab's identity, if Pakistan does so, it could end a series of charges and counter-charges between the two countries.

Meanwhile, few hours after the acceptance by Pakistan I&B minister, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani sacked the National Security Adviser, Mehmood Ali Durrani, for acknowledging in public that Kasab could be Pakistani. It was Durrani, who had first accepted during an interview with an Indian news channel that Kasab could be a Pakistani national.

On Wednesday, the Pakistan Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik forwarded its preliminary reports confirming Kasab's nationality to Prime Minister’s office. And within minutes of Durrani’s confirmation, Pak foreign office too suspected that there could be a Pakistan link to the terror assault on Mumbai.

Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, however, said that it’s premature to say whether Kasab was from this country or that country.

Pakistan's hesitant acknowledgement comes as US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Richard Boucher, arrives in Delhi on Thursday for talks with Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and to meet Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee. He is expected to brief the Indian government on his talks in Islamabad.

A day earlier, ISI chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha said terrorism was the main challenging enemy of Pakistan, and not India. And a day later on Wednesday, a hesitant acknowledgment of Kasab’s Pakistani nationality comes. This shows that Pakistani is reeling under acute international pressure and an alarming threat on Pakistan that it could be declared a terrorist state by UN or face ban might have forced Pakistan to change her attitude.