B.RAMAN
After the March 1993 serial explosions in Mumbai
organised by Dawood Ibrahim, who was then living in Dubai, the Memon brothers
and others trained by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who had allegedly
carried out the conspiracy, escaped to Karachi via Kathmandu. They were given
shelter in Karachi by the ISI.
2. On coming to know of this, the Narasimha Rao
Government then in office in the Government of India brought this to the notice
of the US and sought its help for tracing them. The US Consulate in Karachi
started making enquiries about their presence there.
3. The ISI thereupon had them flown to Bangkok
where the perpetrators were kept in a hotel arranged by the Pakistani Embassy
in Bangkok. After some months, the US Consulate in Karachi stopped making
enquiries about their presence in Karachi. The ISI shifted them back to Karachi.
4. One of the perpetrators went to Kathmandu from
Karachi and clandestinely entered India to meet a family friend. He was
arrested by the Police and interrogated. During the interrogation, it came out
that the perpetrators of the 1993 terrorist strikes organised by Dawood Ibrahim
had been kept in Bangkok for some time by the ISI. In August 1994, Shri
Padmanabiah, the then Home Secretary of the Government of India, held a press
conference to announce the details of what the suspect had told the Police
about the perpetrators of the 1993 terrorist strikes organised by Dawood Ibrahim
being kept in a Bangkok hotel by the ISI after the commission of the terrorist
strikes.
5. Around the same time, the “Far Eastern Economic
Review”, then published from Hongkong, had carried a report alleging that
Mr.Thaksin Shinawatra, who had won a telecom contract in Cambodia by bribing local
Army officers, had tried to instigate a coup in Cambodia with the help of
Cambodian Army officers in the pay of his company.
6. It also came out in India that the telecom
company of Mr.Thaksin Shinawatra had been given a contract in Kolkata. The
issue figured in the Lok Sabha. Our intelligence community drew the attention
of Narasimha Rao to the allegations made against Mr.Thaksin Shinawatra’s
telecom company in Cambodia by the “Far Eastern Economic Review”.
7. Narasimha Rao had it checked up whether
background enquiries regarding
Mr.Thaksin Shinawatra had been made before his company was given the Kolkata
contract. It was found that no such enquiries had been made.
8.Some years later, Mr.Thaksin Shinawatra entered
politics and became the Prime Minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006. He was
very well disposed towards India during his Prime Ministership and even earlier
when he was a Deputy Prime Minister. He helped India in becoming a full
dialogue partner of the ASEAN and was always positive in his attitude towards
India. We were happy with him as a political leader, Deputy Prime Minister and
Prime Minister.
9. It came to notice during his Prime Ministership
that he was maintaining equally close relationship with Gen.Pervez Musharraf,
who was then in power in Pakistan. He had allegedly come to know Musharraf
through Mr.Shaukat Aziz, a Pakistani businessman living in the Gulf, who became
the Finance Minister of Musharraf and subsequently his Prime Minister in 2005.
When Mr.Shaukat Aziz was the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Mr. Thaksin
Shinawatra was the Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin had worked hard to bring
Pakistan and the ASEAN closer together.
10. As Prime Minister, Mr.Shaukat Aziz visited
Bangkok from May 8 to 10,2005. Thaksin spent most of the time with him, drove
him around and accompanied him for his courtesy call on the King of Thailand
who was then staying in the interior. The close relations of Thaksin with Mr.Shaukat
Aziz and through him with Gen.Pervez Musharraf came to notice during this
period.
11. After leaving office, Musharraf against whom
there is allegedly a non-bailable warrant in Pakistan in connection with the
pending investigation into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December
2007, has been living in London allegedly as a guest of Shaukat Aziz, the close
friend of Thaksin.
12. It is intriguing that despite this past history, Pervez Musharraf
and Thaksin should have figured as honoured guests in the leadership summit of
the “Hindustan Times” held at New Delhi on November 16 and 17 and should have
been lionised by the CNN-IBN TV channel which was associated with the summit.
13. I had myself in the past spoken well of the
helpful attitude of Thaksin to India, but at the same time I had been concerned
over his closeness to Aziz.
14. I don’t know what is the objective of the so-called
leadership summits and whether any purpose is served by issuing invitations
that could become controversial and embarrassing. ( 17-11-12)
(The writer
is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi,
and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate
of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter @SORBONNE75)
