Omar
Shaikh:
The
Man Who Knows
and
Talks Too Much!
On March 12, 2002, a court in
Karachi extended the police remand of Omar Shaikh, the British terrorist
Of Pakistani origin, who is believed to have masterminded the kidnapping
of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist. Pearl was subsequently reported to
have been brutally murdered and beheaded, most probably by the
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) headed by Qari Saifullah Akhtar, which
has always been close to the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment
and Gen.Pervez Musharraf.
As already repeatedly pointed out by this writer, the Pakistani
authorities have been trying hard to steer the investigation away from the
HUJI and to project it as the work of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), one of
the five terrorist organisations banned by Musharraf on January 15,2002.
They are afraid that if the HUJI's involvement became public knowledge
there could be US demands for banning it.
An interesting thing happened in the court on March 12. When the Karachi
Police moved the application for the extension of his Police remand on the
ground that his interrogation was incomplete, Omar Shaikh reportedly
remarked:" What do they mean by saying the interrogation is incomplete?
They stopped interrogating me more than a fortnight ago. I am prepared to
talk to them, but they are afraid of my talking."
In fact, reports from independent and usually reliable sources in the
Karachi Police say that in the beginning of March, Musharraf ordered the
stopping of all interrogation of Omar Shaikh in connection with his
involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Pearl and other terrorist
incidents.
When the Karachi Police took custody of Pearl from the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) on February 12, he started talking to them freely and
voluntarily about his activities since he was released by India in the
last week of December, 1999, to terminate the hijacking of an Indian
Airlines plane to Kandahar by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM).
He said that:
He had since then been
functioning from Lahore with the knowledge and permission of the ISI. At
Lahore, he was in regular touch with Gen.Mohammad Aziz Khan, who was a
Corps Commander there, till his appointment as the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Committee on October 8,2001.
He was frequently traveling
to Kandahar to meet Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban, and
Osama bin Laden and to Dubai.
He had personally met
Mohammad Atta, the mastermind of the September 11 terrorist strikes on
the World Trade Centre in New York, during one of his visits to Kandahar
and knew of the plans for the September 11 strikes. He had told Lt.Gen.
Ehsanul-Haq, the present DG of the ISI, who was then a Corps Commander
at Peshawar, and Gen. Aziz Khan about it.
He had personally
accompanied Musharraf and Aziz to the headquarters of the
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), at Muridke,near Lahore, when they had gone there
before Musharraf's India visit in July last to appeal to the LET not to
oppose his visit to New Delhi.
He had orchestrated the
attacks on the Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly on October 1,2001,
and on the Indian Parliament at New Delhi on December 13,2001, and the
firing incident outside the American Centre in Kolkata on January
22,2002. He knew Aftab Ansari, the mafia leader, who is presently under
interrogation in India in connection with the Kolkata incident. All
these attacks were organised with the knowledge and approval of the ISI.
Pearl was kidnapped and
murdered because he was making enquiries about the links of the
Pakistani military-intelligence establishment with bin Laden and wanted
to meet people who would have knowledge of the present whereabouts of
bin Laden. They suspected that Pearl was being used by the USA's Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to recruit people who might be prepared to
betray bin Laden and help in his capture.
More spectacular terrorist
acts against the US were in the offing.
Sindhi Officers of the Karachi
Police, who had been extremely resentful of the manner in which Musharraf,
a Mohajir (immigrant from India), had made them work under the supervision
of Army monitors much junior to them in rank, leaked to the media what
Omar Shaikh told them about his involvement in the terrorist attacks in
India.
Kamran Khan of the "News" of Islamabad reported about this in his periodic
column. This set off a wave of panic in the GHQ at Rawalpindi and in the
ISI headquarters, who tried to discredit Kamran Khan's story by saying
that Omar Shaikh had been tutored to say all this about his involvement in
the terrorist attacks in India. Though they did not specify who had
tutored him, the insinuation was that India had tutored him to discredit
Pakistan and Musharraf.
They then pressured the owner of "News" to sack the Editor of the paper
and three of his journalists, including Kamran Khan, who had been
publishing a lot of reports on the Pearl case which cast doubts on
Musharraf's sincerity.
Musharraf spoke to the father of Omar Shaikh and requested him to persuade
his son not to make such statements which harmed Pakistan's supreme
national interest. The father was allowed to talk to his son over phone
and, on his appeal, Omar Shaikh agreed to retract his earlier statements
and deny ever having said these things.
In fact, in keeping with his promise to his father, he did retract, but
subsequently, he again started saying that he stood by whatever he had
stated earlier.
Musharraf then ordered the Karachi Police not to interrogate him any
longer and to treat him well. The military-intelligence establishment is
in a dilemma. It is determined not to extradite him to the USA lest he
repeat before the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) what he had told
the Karachi Police. At the same time, they don't want to try him in
Pakistan either.
Amongst the various options reportedly being considered are to have him
declared as insane and unfit for trial and extradition or, if need be, to
eliminate him and show him as having been killed when an attempt was made
to free him by the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, the banned Sunni extremist
organisation, which has recently stepped up its anti-Shia activities in
Karachi.
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Omar
Shaikh:
The
Man Who Knows
and
Talks Too Much!