How the BBC helped identify a Mumbai bomber four years ago

The sole surviving gunman in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, was hanged in a prison in Pune on 21 November after his appeal was rejected by the Indian president Pranab Mukherjee. The attacks on Mumbai's railway station, luxury hotels and a Jewish cultural centre claimed 166 lives. Sajid Iqbal, a media analyst at BBC Monitoring, remembers how the BBC covered the story at the time:

On 26 November 2008, India's commercial capital Mumbai was hit by a devastating terrorist attack. The Indian government blamed a Pakistan-based militant group, Jamaat-ud-Dawaa (JuD). Pakistan was unmoved. Its leadership demanded evidence of JuD's involvement before taking action against the group.

Ajmal Qasab was the only link that could convince Pakistan as well as the international community of JuD's involvement. Following his interrogation by Indian security agencies, the media reported that he hailed from a village called Faridkot in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Pakistan rejected this assertion, saying there were several villages called Faridkot in the province.

The international media, including the BBC, tried to establish where Ajmal Qasab came from but, despite their best efforts, Islamabad-based foreign correspondents failed to clarify the story.

I was a desk editor at the BBC's Urdu Service at the time. I was approached by one of our correspondents who said he had information about the exact location of the Faridkot from where Qasab came. I talked to him over the phone about various aspects of the tip-off he’d received. I became convinced that he knew what he was talking about and was confident he could get the scoop without compromising his safety.

I reminded him that the story was sensitive and asked him to handle it very carefully. I told him that a minor slip up on our part could jeopardise the BBC’s reputation and put his own safety at risk. "You are not going there to prove any point. The only purpose of your visit to the village is to report on the Indian claims about the domicile of Ajmal Qasab," I remember telling him.

I was in touch with the correspondent constantly via his mobile phone on the day of his trip. During our brief conversations he told me there was an uneasy calm in the village. A group of well-dressed people were questioning everybody entering the village about the purpose of their visit. The prayer leader at an anti-Salafi mosque (the group blamed had Salafi affiliations) told our correspondent that Ajmal did indeed come from village. This man blamed members of the local JuD organisation for leading the young people of the village on the path of violent jihad and extremism. He also confirmed that "plain clothes men" roaming the streets were not from the village.

After agreeing with the correspondent on the script of his report, he was put on air. His report was based strictly on what he saw or heard, and it provided context and information about the possible motives of those who had given him information. He was interviewed by BBC Urdu and BBC Hindi which broadcast the story one after the other. The story was also published on BBC Urdu.com and BBC Hindi.com as text.

Although the story did not fully establish the domicile of Ajmal Qasab and his links to the JuD, it opened a floodgate of media reports about the sole surviving gunman and his village, Faridkot.

Two days after the BBC report, the London-based Observer published a report which used the electoral roll for Faridkot to establish Qasab’s link to the village. Geo News, a leading Pakistani TV channel, followed up the story with reports in several of its bulletins.

A former Pakistani prime minister and one of the country’s most prominent politicians, Mian Nawaz Sharif, made a statement that, in the light of the national and international media coverage, he was certain Qasab was a Pakistani national.

Meanwhile, the daily Dawn, Pakistan's most influential English-language newspaper, devoted seven columns to an interview with Qasab's father who said he had seen him on TV and could confirm he was his son. His mother was reported to have wept during the entire course of the interview.

The most amazing aspect of Dawn’s interview was that it was conducted well before the rest of the media had a whiff of the exact location of the right Faridkot - although it was only published after the BBC and Observer reports.

The editorial leadership of the newspaper was apparently not ready to take the risk of annoying the powerful security establishment. It was because of the extensive media coverage that the Pakistani government was forced to concede that Qasab was a Pakistani national and launch legal proceedings against the alleged planners of the Mumbai attacks.

The role of the BBC in establishing the domicile of Qasab provided practical lessons for journalists operating in conflict situations. And it underlined the importance of the BBC World Service to media freedom the world over. The World Service teams made the work of the local media easier. And they set an example for local media on how to operate without fear and favour.