After being in denial mode, Pakistan today finally admitted that the lone captured terrorist in the Mumbai attack, Ajmal Amir Iman ‘Kasab,’ is its national, vindicating India’s stand.
It has been confirmed that Ajmal Kasab is a Pakistani national following preliminary investigations by national security agencies, according to Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq.
He was replying to questions by reporters who asked for confirmation of the news report that investigations have revealed that Kasab is a Pakistani.
Pakistani sources, however, sought to suggest that Kasab had no links to official agencies.
The significant admission, which could reveal further Pakistani connections to the attacks, came a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said some official agencies of Pakistan were involved in the strikes and two days after India gave evidence to Islamabad seeking handing over of the masterminds.
Days after the attacks, a Pakistani television channel traced Kasab’s origins to Faridkot village in Punjab province and his father told a newspaper that he was his son.
But intelligence agencies got into action to get the villagers deny the story. Pakistan Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik had claimed that there was no official record to prove that Kasab was a Pakistani.
Information Minister Sherry Rehman also confirmed the news about Kasab and said investigations were still on.
Earlier in the evening, reacting to reports on Kasab, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said he could not confirm that Kasab was a Pakistani national and that he would not like the media to sensationalise the issue.
Once the media reports said that Kasab was a Pakistani national, there were a plethora of denials from various quarters in Pakistan with some going to the extent of suggesting that Kasab could be an Indian militant.
Pakistan’s High Commissioner in London said India had a number of home-grown militants and Kasab could be a member of one such outfit. He claimed that the confession statement of Kasab was in Hindi and that the “so-called” Pakistani cannot speak Hindi.
Kasab, 22-year-old son of a butcher and a school dropout who was arrested on the night of November 26, had in his confession statement told investigators that he was part of a 10-member Pakistani squad detailed to carry out the attack.
He had said he was trained by the Lashkar-e-Toiba under the guidance of its commander, Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, the mastermind of the Mumbai attack
