With increasing suspicions that state actors have supported the banned Lashkar-e-Toiba to conspire and launch the terror attack on Mumbai in 2008, the Home Ministry is unlikely to oblige a Pakistani request to share information about Syed Zabiuddin aka Abu Jundal’s arrest.
There is widespread belief in government establishment in Delhi that Pakistan cannot be trusted on terrorism matters and information about Jundal share with them would be of no avail since that country is unlikely to act on it.
On Tuesday, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had said that he had received a note from Pakistan Interior Ministry Adviser Rehman Malik seeking information gathered about 30-year-old Jundal who was arrested on June 21 at the IGI airport here. But with law enforcement agencies interrogating the alleged 26/11 handler, the Home Ministry is concerned that sharing information with Pakistan would hamper investigation. Sources in the ministry wondered how Pakistan can be trusted with information on Jundal, whom it protected despite his involvement in 26/11 attack and the arms haul case of Arungabad. Sources said Pakistan government had provided two identity cards, one in Urdu for domestic use and the other for foreign visit to completely mask Jundal’s real identity. He was sent to Saudi Arabia allegedly to collect funds for an attack on India.
A resident of Beed district of East Maharashtra, Jundal had spent about six years abroad, after he quietly slipped into Pakistan following the hunt for him in the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case. In 2010, he was moved to Saudi Arabia where he could not carry out the task assigned to him by Lashkar since he was detained early next year. On Wednesday, Chidambaram had indicated that he is not taking Rehman Malik’s request for information on Jundal.
"We will do that in due course. But I will insist that Pakistan keeps its promise and gives us the voice samples of all the persons whose list was given. Let's see how Pakistan reacts. It is Pakistan which is under pressure, not India," he had said. Investigating agencies are following associates of Jundal just as they did to identify the contacts of Pakistan-born American Lashkar terrorist David Headley.
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