Pakistan tells investigators to wrap up Mumbai attacks investigation in 10 days

By Asif Shahzad of the Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Investigators have 10 days to complete their inquiries into the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan's top Interior Ministry official said Saturday.

Rehman Malik told reporters that investigators were looking at information handed over by India and leads gathered independently. Provincial and central government-level investigations were ongoing, he said.

Islamabad is under pressure to clamp down on Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned Pakistan-based militant group that India blames for the November siege that killed 164 people in its commercial capital.

On Thursday, Pakistan's Interior Ministry said it had arrested 71 people linked to the group and that another 124 were under surveillance and had to register their every move with police.

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WHAT IF

India and Pakistan on the verge of a war. Thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza. Kashmir. Somalia. Zimbabwe. People are dying everywhere, it is the same story. Will there every be an end to it? What will bring peace to the world or is peace an unattainable illusion? Who is to be blamed and if so why blame them? These questions haunt me all the time.

Last night, I was wondering what if India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were still one? It would have been a different place. Maybe in 100 years, it will become one again. What a notion! India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as one big nation. Hard to imagine, isn't it? We have been fighting for more than 50 years. Can you image how many lives has been lost over 50 years and still counting? The same story is reflected in the Middle East in Palestine. Imagine Palestinians and Israelis living together in peace. Why do we have so much hate for each other? Pick a place on the world map and there is something gruesome going on.

Will we ever see peace in the world? We talk about peace, we march for peace but why is there so much hate toward one another. In my opinion, peace is not attainable until we all reach a higher level of consciousness. Individually and collectively. Only if we rise above Religion, Cast, Social Status, Skin Color, Borders; let go of our identities; and see ourselves as human beings first. Only if we see ourselves as one big global family, one with the human race, and part of this planet and not separated from it. Only if we see the world's problem as our own. Only if, but can we?

I wonder what a place this world would be if we could.

Eliyas Qureshi is a Actor & Filmmaker based New York, NY.
Eliyas Qureshi
www.Eliyas.com
www.qEntertainment-films.com

Pakistan's Reaction to the Dossier

I just came across this on the Daily Times...but what interests me the most is that Pakistan has supposedly closed various schools and organizations by banned groups.

Pakistan forms committee to analyse Mumbai dossier

* Malik says 5 Dawa camps closed
* Calls for allowing Pakistani sleuths into India
By Tahir Niaz

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has formed a high-level committee to analyse the information about the November 26 Mumbai terrorist attacks that New Delhi has shared with Islamabad, Interior Adviser Rehman Malik said on Thursday.

Addressing a news conference, he said the findings of the body would be shared with the parliament and the nation.

Sources privy to the measure said FIA Additional Director General Javed Iqbal would head the committee, which would also include Special Investigations Group in-charge Khalid Qureshi and an FIA Director Liaqat Ali Khan.

Malik said Pakistan had closed down 20 offices, two libraries, 87 schools, seven madrassas and five camps run by the banned Jamaatud Dawa, and had arrested 124 people in a crackdown on banned groups in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

In a clarification, Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said 71 people had been arrested.

Publications by the banned group – Al Dawa, Zarab-e-Tayyaba, Voice of Islam, Nannhay Mujahid and Arabic magazine Rabita – and six websites linked to it had also been shut down, Malik said.

The interior adviser asked New Delhi to allow Pakistani investigators to travel to India for investigation, and asked it to cooperate with Pakistan through direct diplomatic links.

Malik asked New Delhi for details of its allegations of infiltration of terrorists from FATA into India.

Daily Times - Mumbai attacks’ witness goes missing

Just saw this on the Daily Times' website 

LAHORE: A woman who identified six gunmen of the Mumbai attacks has disappeared mysteriously, a private TV channel quoted the Indian media as saying on Tuesday. According to the channel, the Mumbai Police said on Tuesday that Anita Uddaiya, the woman who had identified the bodies of six terrorists in JJ Hospital, had been missing since January 11. The police have started searching for the woman at the complaint of her daughter. According to the police, the woman had seen the terrorists as they got out off a boat. The crime branch of the city police, which is the investigating agency in the Mumbai attacks, is also probing the incident.

Which One's the Terrorist?

I've been resisting linking the terror attacks in Mumbai and the war in Gaza (putting all acts of "terrorism" under the same umbrella seems to over-simplify the matter almost as much as declaring a "war on terror" itself), but Reza Aslan's article for the Daily Beast got me thinking about what makes a terrorist.

In "Which One's a Terrorist?" Aslan parses the differences (and, it turns out, there are shockingly few) between acts of war and acts of terror, in terms of motive, intent and collateral damage. The obvious argument is intent. Terrorists intend to kill civilians. Soldiers do not.

So, what about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Cities that were leveled in mere seconds by bombs stamped USA, killing over 200,000 civilians instantly?

The US, apparently, claims the difference between soldiers and terrorists lies in matching uniforms. And : remorse. Ergo, if the "collateral damage" caused by state-sponsored acts of violence yield civilian deaths, so long as the perpetrators are wearing camouflage and offer somber apologies after the fact, they are righteous and justified in their actions.

The men who killed hundreds of civilians in Mumbai on 11/26 are terrorists. There is no justification for their brutal acts. But in this shape-shifting war on terror, maybe we can learn something by applying Aslan's arguments and trying to define clearly and unconditionally why they should be labeled terrorists as opposed to guerilla fighters or non-uniformed soldiers.

Thoughts?

READ: Reza Aslan, Which One's the Terrorist?

What should Pakistan do now?

I just read an article of Voice of America about the Pakistani militant who claims responsibility for the Mumbai attacks. What 'stern action' do you think Zardari/Pakistan should take now?