New Delhi - The body of evidence of Pakistan’s statal institutions’ involvement in terrorism against India has grown significantly with the deportation from Saudi Arabia of Zabihuddin Ansari operating under the pseudonym of Abu Jundal and nine other fake names.

He is a crucial witness because he says that he had helped orient the ten-member terrorist group, of which Ajmal Kasab is the lone survivor, to talk and behave like Indians after they landed in Mumbai.

He has also said that he was present in the “control room” in Karachi from where the kingpin of terrorism, Hafiz Saeed, Chief of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and Pakistani military officials were directing the attack on Mumbai on 26/11/2008.

This clearly establishes the fact that terror camps hitherto believed to be operating from PoK have their control headquarters in Karachi and mainland of Pakistan.

Pakistan, as usual, has denied everything and has sought to obfuscate its involvement by pointing to three different “Abu Jundals” in India’s list of men most wanted for the Mumbai attacks.

But that puerile terrorist camouflage is easily dispersed by the DNA profile of Zabihuddin Ansari. The distinctive sound of his voice as recorded while the terrorist attack was taking place should put an end to that argumentation And now discovery of a Pakistani Passport.

Instead of banal denials Pakistan has an opportunity to set its house in order and draw away from the pariah status into which it is swiftly descending. Admittedly, for a nation that took so much trouble to hide the most wanted man in the history of human existence, Osama bin Laden, it is no easy change of posture. But Pakistan must charge for the sake of its own existence.

It could learn something more from its mentor the House of Saud. It is Saudi Arabia which is responsible for the mess in which Pakistan finds itself. It is the Saudi brand of fundamentalist Wahabi Salafism imported from an influential madrassa in Riyadh that General Ziaul Haq obtained the poison-seed that has spread like wildfire in Pakistan. The Saudi ruling family has learned the lesson of self-preservation the hard way. It has lost three Princes who in many ways were direct conduits to Osama bin Laden to whom they supplied money and arms delivered on Pakistan Air Force aircraft in return for assurances that he would not attack the Saudi family. They all died under strange and disturbing circumstances.

India worked on that angle and provided enough evidence to prove that Zabihuddin Ansari was part of a network dedicated to the elimination of members of the ruling family, take over the control of the Holy Mosque and establish a new Caliphate of which Riyadh would be the most acceptable capital for most members of the Organisation of Islamic Conference. The Saudis read the writing on the wall and decided to get rid of Ansari. Others wanted by India could follow suit.

In this regard the United Arab Emirates has been consistent in handing over to India those wanted for terrorist and criminal connections. The Government of India should request Saudi Arabia not to fund the creation of Wahabi fundamentalist madrassas in India. Many have mushroomed along the borders with Nepal and Bangladesh and they are posing a security threat to India.

So far as attempts to find suitable solutions to the contentious issues affecting mutual relations is concerned  in the hope of  attaining peace and tranquility on the subcontinent, even if the entire agenda of the composite dialogue is, miraculously, resolved peace is unlikely to descend on India. Response from Pakistan to resolve the issue of terrorism continues to be negative. Every Pak delegation led by its Foreign Minister or Foreign Secretary chooses to meet and encourage Hurriyat leaders. These Separatist leaders audaciously refuse to meet even India’s Prime Minister, Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and interlocutors. But we are helpless to stop their interaction with their mentor Pakistan even on Indian soil. It would be more appropriate that New Delhi pursue the terrorists that are harboured in Pakistan in every way that it can, relentlessly and without being led astray by solutions to Siachen, Sir Creek, etc., that threaten India’s suzereignty. The status quo does not hurt India in the least. Pakistan sponsored terrorism does.