The Hindu : I did it all, says Omar Sheikh

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2002

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I did it all, says Omar Sheikh
By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, FEB. 18. In a sensational report, a leading Pakistan daily today claimed that Omar Sheikh Saeed, one of the main suspects in the abduction of the U.S. reporter, Daniel Pearl, had owned up responsibility for the suicide attacks on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, Parliament and the shootout in Kolkata and that he admitted to his close links with Osama bin Laden and Aftab Ansari, the Indian militant deported from the UAE in connection with the Kolkata episode.

The News, an English daily, in a lengthy front-page report, claimed that Omar Sheikh had told interrogators that the missions were meant to convey a ``message'' to the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, to go soft on the `jehadi' outfits in Pakistan.

In response to a question at a news conference here, the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan, dismissed the report as `fictitious'. However, the Government deemed it necessary to contradict the report on its own.

Four days ago, when the same paper published another report, once again reportedly on the basis of Omar Sheikh's confessions, Islamabad did not comment.

In that report, the paper claimed that Omar told his interrogators that Mansur Hasnain - prime `architect' behind the hijack of the Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu - was the main culprit in the kidnap of Mr. Pearl. Political and diplomatic circles here are surprised over the two reports. ``We wonder who could be leaking such damaging and sensitive information to the media. The nature of reports on the Pearl case seems to suggest some rift within the establishment on the whole approach towards tackling the jehadis'', a Western diplomat said.

In his lengthy ``confessions'' to Pakistan police, the British-born Omar Sheikh narrated his role in all three incidents, which according to him, were aimed at provoking the Indian leaders to take a hardline action against Pakistan which, in turn could force Gen. Musharraf to soften his stand against the Pakistan-based `jehadi' groups.

The paper said Omar Sheikh offered to reveal the real identities of the Kashmiri militants who had stormed the Indian Parliament. He also admitted that the aim was to take parliamentarians hostage and to seek the release of all Kashmiri militants from Indian prisons.

He has also reportedly confessed that the militant who exploded the car bomb outside the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in Srinagar on October 1 last was a Pakistani suicide bomber.

Sheikh also provided Pakistani police with ``unsolicited'' details on his connections and relationship with Aftab Ansari, chief suspect in the Kolkata shooting case. He said he was in touch with Ansari a few days prior to the incident. He had cultivated Ansari while they were both inmates in the Tihar jail in New Delhi in the late Nineties. Ansari, who was recently deported to India from the UAE and also confessed to his links with Sheikh which Pakistan describes as ``murky and rubbish''. Sheikh also identified his fellow Jaish leader, Mansur Hasnain alias Hyder - one of the hijacker of the Indian Airlines plane to Kathmandu - as the kingpin behind Pearl's kidnapping.

He told police that he believed that Mr. Pearl was gunned down by his captors while escaping from a Karachi safe house, only a few days after the kidnapping on January 23. Sheikh also provided specific details on his travels to Afghanistan a few days after September 11 attacks to have a personal meeting with Osama bin Laden near Jalalabad. Police officials said Omar had ties with several other Arab associates of Osama.

The newspaper quoted a high-rank security official as saying that ``some extremist forces have come in open to blackmail the Government agencies by threatening to expose the black secrets. We knew that on this new path to moderation we would ultimately meet this ugly turn.'' It also quoted some other officials as saying that Sheikh was ``blatantly lying'' about his role in the most publicised terrorist cases, only to earn an image of a hero so that he got maximum media attention here and abroad.

In another report, Pakistani intelligence official-turned-activist of the Islamic outfit Jaish-E-Muhammad, who is currently in police custody in connection with the kidnapping of Mr. Pearl, wants his interrogators to permit him to go on a ``suicide mission anywhere in Kashmir or rest of India, instead of sending him to gallows.''

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