Islamabad admits Fahim went to Pak on its fake passport

Pakistan has, for the first time, confirmed the role of one of the two Indians charged in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks although only partially.

In its dossier given to New Delhi on July 11, Islamabad has said that Mumbai-resident Fahim Ansari traveled to Pakistan in late 2007 using forged documents as accused by the Mumbai Police.

Ansari and Bihar's Sabahuddin Ahmed are alleged to be Indian operatives of Lashkar-e-Toiba and charged with surveying targets in Mumbai, making maps and videos and giving them to their Lashkar bosses in Pakistan to help guide the attackers who raided the city in November.

The two were in the custody of the Uttar Pradesh police for their alleged role in the attack on the CRPF camp in Rampur before being moved to Mumbai and charged in the 26/11 attack case.

Sources told The Indian Express that the dossier, an update of the action taken by Pakistan against those named as fugitives by India, mentions that Ansari entered Pakistan in November 2007 under the name "Hamad Hassan" using a bogus Pakistani passport with the number BM-680-9341. Ansari "obtained the passport through misdeclaration of facts", it says without elaborating.

Pakistani investigators cross-checked these facts with their passport office, as well as with airport entry records, according to the dossier. However, the dossier is silent on the crucial charge that the alleged maps and videos made by Ansari were handed over to Lashkar handlers in Pakistan who used them to plot and execute 26/11.

The dossier was given days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pak counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani met on the sidelines of the NAM summit in Sharm el-Sheikh and agreed to delink action on terror by Pakistan with talks between the two countries. The dossier, among other things, also acknowledged for the first time the role of senior Lashkar operatives named by India in the 26/11 attack.

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