The joint statement issued at Havana had said:
The NSA apparently meant that the evidence collected so far is direct, indirect and circumstantial, but they are yet to collect material and documentary evidence. Collection of material and documentary evidence takes time. It took five months in 1993
"The two leaders met in the aftermath of the Mumbai blasts. They strongly condemned all acts of terrorism and agreed that terrorism is a scourge that needs to be effectively dealt with. They decided to put in place an India-Pakistan anti-terrorism institutional mechanism to identify and implement counter-terrorism initiatives and investigations."
Before analysing Shri Narayanan's interview, one needs to highlight what has been the attitude of successive Pakistanileaderships�"military or political�"to the question of counter-terrorism co-operation with other countries. This can be discussed under twoheads�"counter-terrorism co-operation with countries other than India and co-operation with India.
Does the Havana Agreement indicate a change in the policies hitherto followed by Pakistan? From a study of the statements and comments of Pakistani officials on the significance of the Havana statement, the following points are clear:
From his observations, it is clear that the government does not view the mechanism as having any preventive role, which would require intelligence sharing, but purely a facilitating role to help the investigation and prosecution of acts of terrorism after they have beencommitted. His ruling out any intelligence-sharing with Pakistan is understandable. If we share any intelligence with Pakistan, that would enable it to identify our sources and put them out of action or identify the links being intercepted by us and abandon their use.
Evidence-sharing also has pitfalls when dealing with an adversary such as Pakistan. So too giving publicity to evidence collected. Premature sharing of the totality of evidence, before an investigation has been completed and theprosecution launched, might enable Pakistan to have an idea of what the suspects and witnesses have been telling the police during their interrogation and cover up their tacks. Shared documentary evidence can also enable Pakistan to identify the sources which gave the documentary evidence and act against them. During the investigation of the Mumbai blasts of March,1993, disclosure by the Maharashtra authorities to the media of the fact that the Indian intelligence had managed to obtain xerox copies of the passenger manifests of the Pakistan International Airlines flights by which the perpetrators travelled to Karachi from Dubai for training and returned from there enabled them to identify the source who gave these xerox copies and have him sacked. Thus, the evidence sharing also to be selective and on a case-to-case basis.
Material and documentary evidence is usually described as the clinching evidence or the smoking gun. During the investigation of the Mumbai blasts of March,1993, the Mumbai Police and the intelligence agencies were able to collect all the four kinds of evidence to prove the involvement of the ISI. When Shri Narayanan said that the evidence collected so far is very good, but not yet clinching, he apparently meant that the evidence collected so far isdirect, indirect and circumstantial, but they are yet to collect material and documentary evidence. This was apparent even from the press conference held by the Commissioner of Police of Mumbai. Collection of material and documentary evidence takes time. It took five months in 1993.
There may be instances in which material and documentary evidence may not become available at all. This does not necessarily weaken the culpability of the accused. In many terrorism-related cases, Western courts have held that convictions can be based purely on confessions, statements and circumstantial evidence if they corroborate each other and there is a continuous chain of evidence. Many convictions in the case relating to the explosion in the New York World Trade Centre in February 1993 were awarded purely on the basis of confessions, statements and circumstantialevidence. The absence of material and documentary evidence so far only shows that this time the ISI has taken greater care to maintain the deniability of its involvement. It does not weaken the credibility of the other evidence collected regarding its involvement.