On the sidelines of the Non -aligned nations Summit in Havana last year, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh raised a lot of dust back home by saying that Pakistan was a victim of terrorism. Though the context in which he said so was related to the need for a joint mechanism between the two countries to combat terrorism which has become the greatest challenges for the civilized world, the opposition parties took the opportunity to target him saying his government lacked a coherent policy vis-a-vis Pakistan.
And now the Home Minister Mr. Shivraj Patel made a curious remark in Srinagar that we should not blame Pakistan for all that goes wrong in Kashmir like increase in infiltration and spurt in violence. The remark did take everybody by surprise as it flew in the face of India’s hitherto known stand on Pakistan’s role in Kashmir. India has all the time been blaming Pakistan for aiding and abetting terrorism in Kashmir in a bid to destabilize the state and force on India a solution to the Kashmir issue. Delhi has, in fact, been charging Islamabad of using terrorism as a state policy to achieve this goal. To that extent the opposition parties do have a point.
Not surprisingly, Patil’s comment found a reflection in the opening remarks of the Pakistan’s interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah at the Home Secretary level meeting in New Delhi. And why should it not! Shah emphasized that his country had no role in terror influx into India .There was no one to rebut him.
Is this a sudden change of heart on India’s part? One would tend to believe so but going by the ups and downs in the Indo- Pak relations it would be too early to volunteer a resounding yes.
What is being witnessed inside Pakistan these days does prove that terrorism, which Islamabad nurtured and spread all over for decades is beginning to take its toll in Pakistan as well. To that extent Dr. Manmohan Singh was right. But the essential point is that Pakistan has consistently been refusing to admit that it is in anyway promoting terrorism in Kashmir or the rest of India. It has been refusing to even admit, despite proof that Dawood Ibrahim is in Pakistan. India’s concern over cross border terrorism has been brushed aside by Pakistan while the rest of the world paid no heed till 9/11 happened.
Pakistan is now face to face with what a commentator says harvesting the bad crop sown. For the Lal Masjid crisis, it has to blame only itself. It is difficult to disagree with the Frontier Post, the daily from Peshawar which said editorially, “this sordid episode should serve notice on this administration that if it is serious about weeding out extremism and militancy, then it has to launch into a concerted and sustained effort. The job cannot be done in fits and starts, as has been its modus vivende so far. And if it wants an end to the propagation of hate and bigotry, it will have to go with a long whip in hand”.
The tragedy is that even today Islamabad is trying its level best to underplay the incident as a one off case. But the fact is that terrorists have taken deep roots in Pakistan and they do not and will not hesitate to let even their host country bleed when it comes in conflict with their interests. If Pakistan does not correct its past mistakes even at this late stage it will have worst to see in the days ahead.
General Musharraf was forced to take action against the terrorists holed up inside the Mosque after the clerics of the mosque openly challenged his authority for six-long months and invited a snub for him from ‘the time tested Pak friend’ China. The mosque had become a nerve centre for the terrorists having links with Al-Qaeda, LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad in the heart of the country’s capital.
The hard-line clerics have been issuing Fatwas against the ministers and calling upon people to wage a Jihad for enforcing Shariah in Pakistan. The two Madrassas under Lal Masjid control, Jamia Hafza for girls and Jamia Faridia for boys were being used as militant fodder. Pakistan’s interior minister went to the extent of saying that his government cannot accept “a state within a state” though the chief of the ruling party Chaudhry Shujaat Hussein was in regular touch with the clerics to broker a peace formula to end the stand off.
That belied the General’s claim that he was one with the US in fighting terrorism in Pakistan and its neighbourhood. The climax came when the mosque terrorists took nine Chinese women hostage on charges of running a brothel. And China is not a country one can take lightly. That gives credence to the belief that left to him, General Musharraf would perhaps not have taken action against the Lal Masjid even now.
Despite the General’s disclaimers, the chief of Lashkar-e- Toiba, Hafiz Sayeed himself admitted last month that terrorist infrastructure existed on Pakistani soil. He reiterated his resolve to carry on Jihad to its logical conclusion. At least fifty terrorist training camps are active according to Kashmiri militants who have give up the gun in the past month.
Of late, General Musharraf seemed to have been realizing that extremism was the greatest threat for Pakistan. But it is still not clear whether his statements reflect a genuine realization on his part or it was only a strategy to shift the public focus from the turmoil Pakistan has been pushed into in the wake of suspension of the Chief Justice Mr Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The keenly awaited judgement by a 13- member bench of the apex court in the Chaudhry case is expected in about a week and general impression is that the verdict will go against Musharraf.
It is somewhat reassuring that the internal situation in Pakistan has not derailed the Indo-Pak dialogue process so far, though it has slowed the momentum down. That the latest Home secretary level meeting did end up with some solid decisions like release of prisoners completing their sentence, finalization of the liberalized visa agreement and a commitment to deal firmly with terror is a positive signal. But what is important is that Pakistan needs to act genuinely against terrorism and it should not use action against the Lal Masjid only as a show window to satisfy the US.
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