Another report - from the Chicago Tribune:
Suspect in Mumbai attack linked to Pakistani village -- chicagotribune.com
But residents deny knowing alleged gunman or his family
11:09 PM CST, December 7, 2008
FARIDKOT, Pakistan—The trail to the hometown of the lone surviving suspect in the Mumbai terrorist attacks leads to this dusty village in Punjab.
Despite government denials that the captured man was from Pakistan, Pakistani journalists said Ajmal Qasab, also known as Ajmal Amir Kamal and Azam Amir Kasav, grew up here. And a former prime minister said Indian officials told their Pakistani counterparts that Qasab said he was from a village named Faridkot in this part of Punjab.
In Faridkot on Saturday, however, no one acknowledged knowing Qasab. And the reception for a Tribune correspondent and several Pakistani journalists was openly hostile from the men who greeted them at the village entrance.
The villagers said they did not remember the alleged gunman's father, Mohammed Amir Qasab, nor the Qasab family shop that sold deep-fried snacks called pakoras. It is as if the Qasab family—their last name means "butcher" in Urdu—never existed.
"Nothing has happened in this village," said Sikander Ali Wattoo, a college professor sitting outside the mayor's office. "It's only a misunderstanding. No terrorist lives in this village."
Faridkot, and how Pakistan handles the story of Qasab, may lie at the heart of the dangerous tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan in the wake of last month's Mumbai terrorist attacks, which left 171 people dead.
India has blamed a Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, or "army of the pure," for masterminding the attacks and said Qasab has admitted under interrogation that he was trained at Lashkar camps in Pakistan.
The Pakistanis say they will cooperate but have seen no proof of a Pakistan link. But evidence that Qasab is from Pakistan would guarantee at least some Pakistani role in the killings and could force the government to take action, as demanded by India and the United States.
The country's most powerful intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, helped build up groups such as Lashkar 20 years ago to fight in disputed Kashmir, experts say. Many militants recruited for these groups were from rural Punjab, from villages such as Faridkot.
Some Indian authorities have suggested that the ISI could have had a role in the Mumbai attacks—a charge Pakistan vehemently denies.
There are at least five Faridkots in Punjab, but only one in the Okara district.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose party runs Punjab province and whose brother is the provincial chief minister, said Pakistan government officials told him what the Indians say Qasab told them under questioning. He said Qasab, about 21, said that he was a resident of Faridkot in the Okara district, about two hours south of Lahore.
"This boy says, 'I belong to Okara, and I left my home some years ago,' " Sharif said in an interview. He said Qasab reportedly would come home for a few days every six months or a year.
"He cut off his links with his parents," Sharif said. "The relationship between him and his parents was not good. Then he disappeared."
The British newspaper The Observer visited this village and reported Sunday that it obtained voter rolls showing the names Qasab reportedly told Indian authorities were his parents'. Village authorities told the Tribune that the couple did not exist.
Rubnawaz Joya, a local journalist who is president of the press club of Dipalpur, less than 2 miles from Faridkot, said Faridkot villagers told him that Qasab last came home during an Islamic holiday about two months ago. Joya said the villagers said Qasab bragged that he could fight 10 men at the same time and showed off his moves.
No one said that Saturday, when Faridkot seemed as though it was under some kind of shadowy siege.
A group of village leaders met journalists at the main road leading into Faridkot, where about 10,000 people live in small brick houses along brick and dirt paths. They said the Tribune correspondent was the first foreigner to visit, ever.
Ghulam Mustafa, the mayor, said the village was not the right Faridkot. Rashid Ahmed Wattoo, a farmer, said many young people from Faridkot had left to work in Lahore.
A crowd formed, some holding large canes, and other journalists from the region showed up. "Don't film here," a man said. When two journalists working for an international news agency kept filming, the crowd started punching and kicking them. Their mobile telephones and digital-video cassettes, called DVs, were taken.
Near the Tribune's car, a few men talked about smashing its windows, stealing the reporter's purse and setting the car on fire. "Just burn their car," one man said.
"I know everything," one boy told the journalists. "Just keep quiet," a man told the boy. "Are you mad?" another man asked.
Finally, the villagers allowed the journalists to walk around—but only along one street, and only with an escort that quickly grew to 20 men.
A reporter for a Pakistani television station said he filmed the house where some villagers said Qasab had lived, and then hid the videocassette in his sock. The footage showed a man inside the house named Mohammad Ghafoor Ahmed denying knowing the Qasabs and said he was the real owner of the house.
"Off the record, everyone said Qasab was from Faridkot," the TV reporter said. "But on the record, they refused."
When told about what happened in Faridkot, Bilal Siddique Kamyana, a police commander in charge of Okara district, replied: "I can't say anything."
A bit later, when the news service journalists came to the police headquarters and complained about their stolen phones and video, Kamyana placed a call.
"Sir," he said, "your men have snatched the journalists' DVs and telephones. You can erase the images, but please give them back to the journalists."
.
