Though July 11 blasts became the turning point, it started much before when Pakistan refused to honour the SAARC agreement for South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA). Islamabad implemented the agreement in respect of all other SAARC countries except India. This is inspite of the fact that India has already and unilaterally, conferred the most favoured nation status on its western neighbour with which it had three wars.

The latest in the series is the unbecoming treatment meted out to the Indian Diplomat Deepak Kaul. Blasts in Mumbai only confirmed Pakistan’s intentions. A series of arrests which followed clearly pointed the finger at Pakistan’s involvement in the goriest incident, which killed over 200 innocent persons, besides maiming thousands.

Given Pakistan’s track record, one could not have understandably expected Pakistan to admit its hand in the blasts. But look at the US official Richard Boucher’s statement soon after the 7/11 incident, that India has no evidence to link Pakistan with the blasts. He chose to ignore heaps of evidence India has been providing regarding terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan. He even went to the extent of saying that the underworld Don Dawood Ibrahim was not in Pakistan. He conveniently forgot the earlier admissions of the US government to the contrary, while declaring him a global terrorist.

How could Boucher ignore the satellite imagery, which the US used last year to prove the existence of Jehadi camps in Pakistan? How could Boucher nullify what the US expert Eric Benn testified in the US district court that the statement of the accused Hamir Hayat interrogated by the FBI, about mountainous location and description of the camp near Balakot in Northeast Pakistan is consistent with the physical things he observed. It is no secret that young men of Pakistani origin are being prosecuted on terrorism charges from California to New York, to Florida to Georgia to Toronto, Sydney and London.

If Boucher believed in what he said, why should he have retracted his steps while he was in Delhi? Why did he later admit “there is terrorism in (south Asian) region? Some of terrorism is in Pakistan. Some of the (terror) groups that have designs against India still have places in Pakistan”. Was it because of India’s strong resentment? Or was it because the National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan confronted the US by saying that New Delhi has much more evidence of Pakistan’s involvement than Washington had about Al Qaeda’s involvement in the 9/11 tragedy?

The fact is that there are 52 training camps in Pakistan and the POK, as stated by the Minister of State for Home E. Ahmad in the Lok Sabha early August. India has time and again given proof of this to Pakistan.

Why is Washington underplaying the gravity of Pakistan’s involvement in terror activities? Is it because it is feeling helpless in the face of the tactics adopted by General Musharraf in opting to be an ally of the US in the war against terrorism and at the same time doing pretty little to fight it out?

Look at America’s own case with regard to the killing of journalist Daniel Pearls. The military establishment is holding up execution of the death sentence of the convict Omar Sheikh because he is linked with ISI. Does it still behove Washington to ask for proof of Pakistan’s involvement in terrorist acts?

The crux of the matter is that Indian CBM’s with Pakistan have backfired. The buses and trains which India allowed to cross the Indo-Pak border and the LOC for better people to people contact are being used by terrorist organizations to sneak in from Pakistan and Bangladesh. This was confirmed by the Home Minister Shivraj Patil himself in Parliament the other day. How could one otherwise explain that over 30 persons who came to see the cricket matches in India last year are missing. They could as well be terrorists.

As if not to be left behind, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a new twist to the Kashmir issue by linking it with the conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq and West Asia. Fortunately, he was soon rebutted by his own former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkin who described Kashmir as a territorial issue between India and Pakistan. And see the contradiction. The US official Richard Boucher too thinks that “Kashmir issue and Terrorism cannot be linked anyway".

Unfortunately, those who believe that India is fast becoming a soft state are getting stronger. Pakistan’s claims that it is in the forefront of fighting terrorism is not carrying much conviction in India. As Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran put it “the best way to judge if it (Pak checking terrorism targeted against India) is being done is to judge what is being done on the ground. If evidence is pointing to the opposite direction then we will have to draw the necessary conclusions.”

For the first time since the peace process between India and Pakistan took off, the CBM’s are under terrible strain. If they come to a breaking point we will be back at square one. There can be nothing more disastrous than that.


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

Printer-Friendly Version