Don under the scanner

The United States has provided additional proof, if any indeed was needed, of Pakistan harbouring underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who is now “specially designated global terrorist” in US law. The UN also has been asked to declare the master-terrorist similarly. The official notification even gives the details of the passport issued by Pakistan government to Ibrahim and his Karachi address. The obvious reaction in India is that this nails the lie of the Pakistani president and army chief, who had categorically asserted that the man responsible for engineering the death of 202 people in the Mumbai blasts of 1993 was not in Pakistan. The general’s spin-doctors may well claim that it is impossible for him to know each and every person in the country. But Ibrahim is by no means an ordinary man.

Sindh provincial officials had lately started to point toward Dawood living in Pakistan. The US government, following on that lead and designating him a global terrorist, has taken an extremely welcome step. While one may heave a sigh of relief at this development, questions inevitably arise as to why it took the US government so long. Also, would Dawood be returned by Islamabad to India for trial? As for the first, it is to be assumed that India had shared all intelligence information about Dawood’s criminal and terrorist activities with the US since the Joint Working Group on Terrorism was set up five years ago.

On the face of it, only two possible explanations come to mind. First, the public focus of the media, especially in Pakistan in recent times, including the reported linkage with Dawood funding the ISI from narcotics trafficking to the extent of $1 billion a year, could hardly be ignored indefinitely. Or, the US waited to get more evidence of Dawood’s activities against America before initiating the step, as it seems to have done in the case of designating the Pakistani Al Akhtar Trust, owned by the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad, as a funder of terrorist activities. Difficult days are being forecast for the future of stability in Afghanistan with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda regrouping on either side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontiers, Washington needs to show action and results in the coming days. But does this mean that our concerns about terrorism would also be adequately attended to in the process? Current signs only reaffirm the basic position that US is primarily concerned with terrorism against itself and its interests. To that extent it would apply pressure on Pakistan up to a point, leaving us to do our own fighting. The big question is: would Pakistan at least now send the global terrorist to stand trial in India?