‘Dead-alive’ narrative on 26/11 plotter left Pak exposed | India News

NEW DELHI: Exploding hostilities with Pakistan has trained the spotlight once again on the audacious deception attempted by Islamabad to shield one of its serving army officers who was “pronounced dead” to deceive the world, but who had to be resurrected and put in prison when the global community discovered the fraud.Sajid Mir, a serving major who had been loaned to LeT – a common practice used by the ISI to groom young jihadis into fanatical terrorists – and played a key role in scripting the Mumbai 26/11 attack was declared dead to deflect the world’s attention from India’s charge of state-sponsored terrorism and to keep up the fiction that jihadi terrorism was the handiwork of “non-state actors”.The deception went to the extent of Pakistan even staging a fake burial for him. However, when the charade was found out, Pakistan ‘arrested’ Mir and put him in prison.

Mir’s case has come handy as India reminded the world of Pakistan’s duplicity, with foreign secretary Vikram Misri bringing him up twice since launch of Operation Sindoor.Misri said, “Pakistan has been known to wilfully mislead the world and international forums such as FATF. In the Sajid Mir case, this terrorist was declared dead, and then, in response to international pressure, brought back to life, found alive and arrested.” According to sources, acceptance of Mir’s existence by Pakistan was a desperate attempt to get off the ‘grey list’ of FATF.When pressure mounted on Pakistan with the search for perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks, Islamabad denied Mir’s existence declared him dead in 2021. Mir was, on paper, lodged in the central jail in Lahore after being ‘sentenced’ for eight years by a Pakistan ‘anti-terrorism court’ on charges of terror financing. He was detained in April 2022 in a hush-hush affair while the jail term was awarded in June, just before a FATF meeting.Mir has a $5 million bounty announced by FBI, which has described him as someone who once wore a beard and hair down to his shoulders. He, according to the US agency, altered his appearance through plastic surgery.The US has held Mir responsible for directing preparations and reconnaissance and being one of the Pakistan-based controllers during the 26/11 attacks. In addition, Mir conspired to commit a terrorist attack against a newspaper and its employees in Denmark between 2008 and 2009.Mir, who would now be in his early 50s, was LeT’s foreign recruiter and the main handler for Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley. A US justice department document mentioned how the 26/11 attackers were in real-time telephonic contact with Mir and his associates during the attacks. On Mir’s advice, Headley changed his name of ‘Dawood Gilani’ to ‘David Coleman Headley’ in order to facilitate his activities on behalf of the LeT by enabling him to present himself in India as an American who was neither Muslim nor Pakistani.