Pakistani Terrorist Commander Ordered Released on Bail, Likely Affecting Pak-Indian Relations

The world was horrified by the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which terrorists stormed a number of buildings in India and killed 168 people.  All but one of the gunmen died; the surviving gunman was convicted and executed in 2012 for his actions.  The terrorists were Pakistani and came from the group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistani terrorist group with historical ties to the Pakistani government and military and highly suspected current ties with Pakistan's chief intelligence service.

The operational leader and co-founder of LeT, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, was arrested in 2008 in connection with the attack.  He has been incarcerated for the past 7 years.  Back in December 2014, a court ordered Lakhvi released on bail.  The Pakistani government opposed the decision and kept him incarcerated, but this past Thursday the Pakistani supreme court ordered that Lakhvi be released immediately.

Protests in India followed the court ruling ordering Lakhvi released (Source: BBC)

This will likely have negative effects on India-Pakistan relations, which have somewhat thawed following the election of India's Prime Minister Modi and a positive exchange of letters amongst the countries' leaders.

What is especially troubling is how little is known about Lakhvi's trial, which has been ongoing since 2009 and is not open to the public:

The commander, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, and six other members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group have been on trial since 2009 at a high-security jail in Rawalpindi, just south of Islamabad, on charges of participating in the Mumbai operation. 

But the trial has been conducted largely in secrecy, and its halting pace has given rise to speculation that its progress is being influenced by the vagaries of wider tensions between Pakistan and India.

While this doesn't mean the case is dismissed, only time will tell whether Lakhvi appears for the remainder of the trial.  While locked up, he wasn't exactly treated like a commander of a terrorist organization:

While Pakistan's government claimed that it was cracking down on terrorists, Zakiur-Rehman Lakhvi and six of his comrades in Rawalpindi's sprawling Adyala Jail had several rooms next to the jailer's office at their disposal. 

And with the jailer's permission, they had a television, mobile phones and access to the internet, as well as dozens of visitors a day. 

"He [Lakhvi] can receive any number of guests, any time of day or night, seven days a week," said one jail official while the terror suspect was under lock and key.
No special permission was required for visitors, who were not even asked to identify themselves to jail authorities.

That access allowed Lakhvi to retain his position as a high-ranking LeT commander even while he was incarcerated.  This is not simply a question of prison conditions.  LeT has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States and the UN Security Council and banned in Pakistan since 2002.

Letting one of their commanders continue to run the organization from prison is an insult to the memories of those who have died at the hands of LeT terror.  While arresting him and bringing him to trial in Pakistan were steps in the right direction for a government that has often been seen as having sympathies toward LeT, the recent supreme court ruling that released him is a step in the wrong direction.  While the Pakistani government publicly opposed that decision, it has been treating him in a manner for the past 5+ years that suggests it is not as eager to take on LeT as it claims.  Reaction in India to the decision has, unsurprisingly, been quite negative.  If Lakhvi and other LeT officials are ultimately acquitted, that negativity will likely manifest itself in worsening relations between two countries that seemed on track to gradually improve their historically volatile relationship.

India and Pakistan: Domestic and Foreign Policies Collide

May 2014 brought the promise of progress in India-Pakistan relations.  After the historic swearing-in of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi - the first ever attended by a Pakistani prime minister - people were cautiously optimistic about relations between the feuding nuclear powers.  That optimism was extended when Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif publicly exchanged letters of gratitude toward each other, which followed up on the meeting the two held after Modi's swearing-in.  In his letter, Modi also expressed India's sympathy toward Pakistan after the terror attack on Karachi's airport.

Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif shake hands after Modi's swearing-in (source: The Guardian).

These developments were promising, and they may well continue.  Of course, it will take more than a meeting and a letter exchange to overcome decades of mistrust and border attacks.  Furthermore, both prime ministers must still deal with local populations that are not so quick to mend old wounds.  Moving too quickly toward improved relations will undercut the support both leaders need to rule.  Indeed, Sharif was condemned for the very decision to attend Modi's inauguration.

Unfortunately, both leaders have already gone back to the tried-and-true tact of using the other country as an easy target for domestic woes.  Last week, for example, Modi declared in a speech to Indian troops that Pakistan now wages a "proxy war of terrorism" because it lacks the capabilities to wage a conventional war.

Sharif, meanwhile, finds his own prime ministership at risk in the midst of large-scale protests.  Those protests are led by political rival Imran Khan of the PTI party.  Khan is calling for Sharif's ouster due to issues ranging from alleged vote-rigging in the 2013 elections to the "dynastic" nepotism of the Sharifs.  Although he has called on protesters to keep their actions peaceful, he has also called on them to stop paying taxes and bills as part of the larger protest.

Perhaps it should not come as a surprise that, in the midst of this internal challenge to Sharif's rule, Pakistani military forces attacked Indian border posts at 20 different locations yesterday.  Incidentally, none of Pakistan's major English-language outlets - Dawn, The News International, and The Express Tribune - reported on the attacks.

Ultimately, the political strategy of pandering to the local population while trying to present a more suitable international front is nothing new.  Its most recent notable iteration may be Iran's positions during the recent nuclear talks.  Iran may try to woo investors and welcome the UN nuclear watchdog, on the one hand, but talk about destruction of the U.S. in the event of an attack, on the other.  In the case of Pakistan and India, the effort to garner local support by castigating the other country is a short-term tactic.  It is also one that finds itself increasingly outdated in the digital age, where information from non-local sources is more readily available.  The longer-term strategy of mending old wounds is harder; it will involve less flashy developments like multiple trade summits, cooperation in counter-terrorism investigations, and regular regional meetings to address issues facing the two and their smaller neighbors.  This will take time, perseverance, patience, and restraint, none of which lend themselves well to the political arena.  Ultimately, the coming months will tell whether May 2014 was a new beginning or merely an aberration in the long-standing dispute.