‘India,Pak have no option but to talk’

“India and Pakistan have no option but to talk with each other: Mumbai or no Mumbai,” Ahsan,who was among the leaders of the lawyers’ movement in 2008 that led to the downfall of Pervez Musharraf,told The Indian Express,referring to the 26/11 carnage.

Ahsan,who is in India to speak at the ongoing India-Pakistan: Roadmap to Peace Conference,was critical of Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor’s recent comment about India getting ready for a two-front war with China and Pakistan. “General Kapoor’s idea of war is with an endemic reflection of the military mindsets on both sides of the border,” he said.

“We wept when Mumbai bled. It wasn’t a wound on India but on South Asia. But it is very hard to make a Pakistani believe the plan could have been executed without local help. Why doesn’t India nab the local sleepers and try them along with Kasab? If it takes India one year to try just Kasab,then Pakistan’s request to seek cogent evidence on conspirators 1,000 miles away is legitimate,” Ahsan said.

Ahsan,having served as the federal interior minister,defended current Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s ‘impoliteness’ towards India. “I think Rehman thinks he is polite because for the interior minister to keep seeking

evidence shouldn’t be misconstrued as shirking from punishing Mumbai’s perpetrators. He has repeated this to a point of frustration,” he said to the minister’s defence.

Leading the lawyers movement earned Ahsan the wrath of his party,the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP),which expelled him. Late last year,he was taken back not only into PPP but also into its Central Executive Committee.

Last month,rumour mills spun that the government offered some prize positions to him. “I was offered governorship of Punjab and the office of attorney general of Pakistan. I humbly rejected because I didn’t want to encash the success of the lawyers’ movement for personal gains. I even don’t

appear before chief

justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry because I was his lawyer. If I win a case before him,the verdict can be misconstrued,” he said.

After investing tremendously in the lawyers’ movement,can he stand back and smile at the results? “The judiciary’s goals have been adequately achieved. Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto were able to return to Pakistan and Musharraf who had vowed to never let them into Pakistan,fell at their feet. Consequently,his uniform came off,” he said.

On democracy in Pakistan,Ahsan said,“You can’t achieve perfection,but it is democracy at least. Pakistan has hiccups and teething troubles due to a history of 34 years of military rule in a span of 62 years. We have inexperienced administrators of the democratic order. This is India’s strength,from which we have learnt a lot. Despite its poverty,India has given hope to its people.”