Former Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf’s aggressive support for Bush’s policies also fuelled anti-American sentiments in Pakistan and was a factor in the growth of terrorism, according to Mohammed Amir Iman Ajmal’s statement to the FBI.
Details of the US agency’s interrogation show that Kashmir finds only a minor mention in Ajmal’s statements. The 10 Mumbai attackers were instructed to claim that they were fighting for the oppressed people of Gujarat and Kashmir in case they were contacted by the media or anyone else during the attack.
The FBI interrogated Ajmal in presence of officials from Mumbai Crime Branch, a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer and officers from the Intelligence Bureau. The FBI brought along a Punjabi translator. The interrogation, which started some time in the afternoon, went on beyond midnight, sources said. During the interrogation, the FBI officials and Ajmal shared a meal.
Indian officials who have studied Ajmal closely point out that he probably was an ‘accidental terrorist’. He had dropped out of school after class four in 2000, did some labour in his village and then shifted to Lahore, where his father was selling chaat. In 2005 - by when his father had shifted back to Faridkot - Ajmal had a fight with his father and ran away from home. During the days after that, when he was working in Lahore, he had come in touch with one Muzaffar. Both of them together decided to commit dacoity in Islamabad on a rich family. To do that well, the duo wanted to get arms training. It was with this intent that the terrorist who mowed down dozens of people at CST went to the Lashkar-e-Toiba camp. The rest, as they say, is recent
history.
