The expulsion of the Indian Visa Counsellor in Islamabad, Deepak Kaul, by Pakistan after blindfolding him and detaining him at an unknown location for hours is a reminder of the manner in which Pakistanis treat the diplomats and staff members of the Indian mission in their country. Some say the expulsion was the result of ‘frustration’ in Pakistan because it is widely suspected of being involved in the Mumbai suburban train blasts that had left 180 dead. That may or may not be true but what is certain is that the expulsion has dealt another blow to the already floundering ‘peace talks’ between the two neighbours. This suits the Pakistani plot.

While Pakistan and some of its Western patrons would blame India for not showing enough enthusiasm for keeping the so-called peace process on, serious questions need to be asked about Islamabad’s intentions too which have been manifest through despicable gestures. Around the time Deepak Kaul was being asked to pack his bags for India, the Pak establishment decided not to let 100 Indian peaceniks to attend a conference in the land of the pure. Days earlier, representatives of the Pak Chamber of Commerce decided to cancel an Indian visit saying that they were not sure of ‘what kind of reception’ would they get in India where they were to be guests of their Indian counterpart.

Deepak Kaul was travelling in a car on way to Lahore en route to the Wagah-Attari border to fetch his family and was lucky that his family was not with him when the Pak sleuths pounced upon him at a wayside teashop. They would have brutally assaulted not only him (as they did) but also his family and then feigned that they had nothing to do with their bruises and cuts.

In the past many members of the Indian mission in Pakistan and their wives and children have returned home with broken limbs. The perpetrators of these brutalities are usually Pakistani intelligence and ISI operatives known to be ‘crude and uncivilised’, as official Indian protests have frequently noted. The Pakistanis think nothing of violating the Vienna Convention of 1961 as well as a 1992 bilateral code of conduct for treatment of diplomatic and counsellor personnel in the two countries.

In reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on May 10 this year, the House was informed that Indian diplomats in Pakistan are subjected to ‘discriminatory treatment which hinders their normal functioning’. Diplomats and staff members of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad are subjected to ‘constant surveillance’ by the hosts. ‘There has often been close, visible and occasionally even aggressive trailing’ of the officers of the Indian mission ‘and their spouses’.

The Pakistanis behaviour towards Indians in their country reaches the climax whenever relations between the two countries come close to danger point, which was the case around and after the Kargil war. On a particular day in November 2001, for instance, there were two particularly galling instances of monstrous behaviour. First, an Indian officer of the Islamabad mission was travelling by bus to Lahore with his wife and son, en route to the Wagah-Attari border. Before he reached his destination, someone from the ISI decided to inspect his bag. When the Indian refused to comply, the ISI man forcibly opened it and finding nothing took away the cash he found. The cash was returned when the officer said that he would complain about it. The ISI man however threatened the Indian officer with ‘dire consequences’ if he returned to Pakistan.

The Indian High Commissioner personally took up the matter with the Foreign Secretary of the time, a well-known India-baiter. But the result was that in the evening of the same day when a member of the Indian mission was returning home from a shopping area with his wife in a taxi eight Pakistani intelligence men travelling in a Landcruiser overtook his vehicle and dragged the husband and wife out of the taxi. The wife was gagged and manhandled, as was the Indian officer. The wife received scratches on her face. Her husband was then driven away to an unknown place, obviously for interrogation and more third degree treatment. He was released the next day—a badly beaten and bruised man.

Two years before these twin incidents, an Indian staffer in Islamabad was pulled out of the mission car in front of his house by a posse of 10 Pak intelligence operatives. The driver and the security guard who were sitting in the official Indian mission car were also pulled out and beaten, as was the Indian staffer. It all appeared to be pre-planned.

The Pak establishment is firm believer in Newton’s Third Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If India expels a Pakistani diplomat or a staffer for spying, Islamabad must retaliate without any loss of time. In February 2003, the Deputy High Commissioner Jalil Abbas Jilani, and four staff members of the Pakistani mission in Delhi were declared persona non grata. They were accused of giving money to two functionaries of the Pakistani proxy in Kashmir, the All Party Hurriyat Conference, for stepping up militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. Jilani was named in a police FIR after the two APHC men admitted that they had received an instalment of Rs 3 lakh from the Pak High Commission officials.

Four hours after the Indian action, Islamabad announced that it was also expelling five Indians, doing one better in the sense that whereas India had declared only one Pakistani diplomat persona non grata, Pakistan picked two Indian diplomats to be declared persona non grata, on trumped up charges.

While it will be naïve to believe that there is no surveillance over the Pakistanis in India, there is little to doubt that in Pakistan it is done more crudely and vulgarly as a matter of state policy and as a matter of routine. The Pakistanis are also many times ‘superior’ to Indians when it comes to taking recourse to falsehood in levelling wild allegations against India. ‘Some governments may economise on truth, but Pakistan has honed mendacity into a fine art for normal conduct of its international relations,’ as an Indian diplomat once said.

DOMESTIC TROUBLE SPOTS
This quick recap of the lows in the India-Pak relations is only to bring upfront the question: Is the General making his India policy a casualty of his domestic troubles? That Pervez Musharraf is facing new problems from the religious groups after Israel launched a fresh onslaught on Hezbollah and Lebanon is clear to any lay man. Not a day passes with the religious right holding a noisy demonstration to denounce him as an American stooge. His Kashmir policy or whatever one may make out of it is also under tatters with no takers on the Raisina Hills in Delhi for his half-baked proposals like demilitarisation.

Whatever leverage 9/11 has given him over the United States also appears to be slipping out of his hands. This is clear from Washington’s acknowledgement that terror groups having ‘designs’ against India still have presence in Pakistan. US pointsman for this region, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, has become wiser on Pak terror trap going by his latest public pronouncements. He has just rubbished any attempt to link the scourge with non-resolution of Kashmir issue, certainly to the disappointment of Foreign Minister Kasuri.

American experts of all hues have also come to acknowledge another truism of Pakistan, namely the nexus between army and the Islamists. Stephen Cohen, for instance, is clear that Pakistan army uses fundamentalists to further its policy goals. In a recent interview he also exploded the myth some sections here in India and in the United States have been propagating that the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) functions outside the army/president domain. Asked whether the ISI is an “independent entity,” Cohen replied “ISI is a branch of the Pakistan government. It does what it is told to do, and many of its members are professionals”.

For General Musharraf, the domestic scene brings no smile either whether it is Balochistan or the ungovernable tribal belt in the Northwest of the country. Sindh remains in the grip of political crisis testing the ingenuity of Musharraf aides. Only the Punjab is quite but it is a fragile peace since it is also home for terror groups like Lashkar-e- Toiba.

Both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have come together keeping aside their pathological hatred of each other to put army in its place, though army is a part of ‘Trinity of As’ – Allah, Army, and America that keeps Pakistan ticking and Army believes, with some justification, that the politicians would prefer the army in power to a political rival.

Given his commando instincts Musharraf knows that he is up against insurmountable problems more so since he has plans to become a ‘pucca’ civilian president next year. So what best bet is there than to revert to India baiting, which indeed is the reason d’etre for Pakistan.


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

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