The bitter taste left by Malik’s controversial remarks — wherein he mentioned 26/11 and Babri demolition in the same breath and also indicated that Kargil martyr Saurabh Kalia may have succumbed to inclement weather — led India to do away with a joint statement. The fact that this was a last-minute decision, taken after much prodding of Malik’s delegation to act on India’s demands in the 26/11 case, was clear when home ministry officials were asked to work on Sunday in anticipation of a positive response from Pakistan.
In fact, even before they decided against the joint statement, India made its disgust plain. Shinde, whom Malik had stunned into silence by raking up Babri, reportedly told the Pakistani visitor during one-on-one talks that he had spoken out of turn and should have restricted his statement to the visa agreement.
The only concrete outcome was the understanding on the visit of a second Pakistani judicial commission to India to cross-examine the key 26/11 witnesses here. But in what vividly illustrates how the alleged peace mission was marred by a deepening suspicion of Pakistan’s intent to take the 26/11 probe and trial to a logical conclusion, India insisted on two riders. It insisted that a home ministry team should be allowed to visit Pakistan to work out the modalities and sort out the legal issues in the panel’s visit. Secondly, the home ministry sought a firm legal opinion from Pakistani law officers on the admissibility of the information that the panel seeks to collect from cross-examining witnesses here and also an express assurance that this would be the final visit of the judicial commission.
The Indian side justified the riders by saying how little Pakistan had done to speed up the 26/11 trial. Much as Malik, in his one-on-one interaction with Shinde, offered to part with all the information sought by India on the 26/11 probe and trial in Pakistan, the delegation accompanying him showed few signs of matching up to the promise when it came to the brass tacks. Incidentally, Abu Jundal being an “Indian intelligence agent” was never raised by Malik during the talks, even after the Indian side repeatedly cited Jundal’s statement to underline that even he had confirmed Hafiz Saeed’s role as the prime mover of the 26/11 attack.
Among the demands put forward by Shinde at his interaction with Malik were handing over a copy of the 26/11 chargesheet filed in the Rawalpindi court, details of calls exchanged by 26/11 perpetrators, IP addresses used for communication during the Mumbai attacks and details of bank accounts supposedly used by 26/11 accused Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. Shinde also sought dates for an NIA team’s visit to review progress of the 26/11 probe in Pakistan.
Though Malik’s response was prompt and “magnanimous” — he said all demands would be met and even volunteered to ferry the NIA team to Pakistan on his return flight —when the Indo-Pakistan delegations really got down to business, the assurances seemed to have run dry.
One particular incident confirmed that Pakistan’s attitude towards the 26/11 case — tall promises but no followup — remains unchanged. When Shinde asked Malik for details of the 26/11 chargesheet filed with a court in Adiala jail, Malik promptly offered to get the signatory, an additional secretary who was part of his delegation, to hand over the document. However, the additional secretary in question looked puzzled and said he had brought no such document with him.
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