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| Terror in Punjab Signals Danger | |
By Allabaksh
Denying as always, Pakistan has pretended that it had nothing to do with the July 27 terror attack in Dinanagar near Gurdaspur in Punjab. It is time the new government of India lived up to its promise and responded to Pakistani aggression effectively not with words but ‘action’ that does not necessarily mean opening a war front. Pakistan must be forced to pay a price, diplomatically and economically, for continuing with its policy of using terror against India. The BJP has to be reminded that it came to power by pledging to respect people’s sentiments which had turned against ‘soft’ Pakistan policy.
Again, as has happened so often in the past, a chorus has also begun asking India to engage with Pakistan, regardless of the latest provocation. The so-called Ufa spirit has to be kept alive, as though it’s the responsibility of India alone! It is easy to count the merits of ‘dialogue’ with Pakistan. But a question that will linger is will Pakistan shed its inherent hostility towards India and, consequently, renounce its policy of ‘bleeding India with thousand cuts’? If the answer is ‘no’, then where is the merit in talking to Pakistan.
The basic purpose of a dialogue with Pakistan has to be lowering of tension between the two countries, before even thinking of resolving differences on certain issues. Those who say that India should replicate the process of on-going India-China dialogue with Pakistan are comparing two very different situations. Dialogue with China has failed to find a mutually acceptable solution to the problem of defining the borders. Nevertheless, the two countries have decided to build strong economic relations which have lowered the tension between the two Asian giants.
On the other hand, there is a permanent message from Pakistan, often described as a rogue and irresponsible nation, that it will not have good neighbourly relations with India unless Kashmir is handed over to it. All talks with Pakistan must centre round Kashmir, or else Pakistan will never change its inimical stance towards India. Many Indians believe that relations can improve with more trade and commerce with Pakistan--and more ‘people to people’ contacts. They tend to overlook the fact that Pakistan is a highly radicalised society. Not that there are no fanatics and extremists in India, the difference is the secular foundation of the Indian state whereas Pakistan was created as the antithesis of India.
The Dinanagar attack suggests that terror exported by Pakistan is travelling in India from Kashmir to Punjab where Pakistan had incited Khalistanis to wage a war against the nation in the 1980s and 1990s. Before Dinanagar, terrorist attacks had been reported from some of the nearby areas, both in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, and Punjab.
There are various reasons for India to suspect Pakistan after the Dinanagar attack which saw the loss of seven Indian lives, including a superintendent of police. The three armed men, who were also killed, carried global positional sets which showed the path followed by them while surreptitiously crossing over to India. The armed men carried no identity cards and factory marks had been erased from the arms and ammunition they carried. This was done to enable Pakistan to deny that it had a hand in the attack. Reports said that the gunmen were completely shaven, spoke Punjabi and shouted ‘Allah-o-Akbar’.
After every terror attack in India, denials from Pakistani flow even before any Indian official has mentioned Pakistan. Guilty conscious Pakistanis then come with implausible stories of how India has no ‘proof’ of their involvement in terror attacks. They make ludicrous efforts to turn the tables on India.
For instance, they claim that the drone that they had shot down the other day was spying over their territory and to back up that claim they have shown aerial pictures allegedly taken by the camera on the drone. The Pakistanis must know that the pictures they have released—days after the event-- look fabricated. They are available on the internet. The Pakistanis are not embarrassed that the ‘Indian’ drone they had shot down was manufactured in China, the country to which they are eternally grateful and which cannot be expected to say or do anything that compromises Pakistan’s position.
One of the more ridiculous ways in which Pakistan refutes Indian charges is to make the incredible claim that they are a ‘peace-loving’ nation and do not support terror ‘in any form’. Really! How many countries in the world will accept that Pakistani lie? The most disgusting part comes when Pakistanis try to brand India as a sponsor of terror and begin a narrative from the days of the Bangladesh war. Was India ever branded a sponsor of terror at any international forum?
Even if it is assumed for argument’s sake that terror is returning to Punjab with the help of ‘homegrown’ militants, as Pakistan would like us to believe, the link with Pakistan cannot still be denied. The army of the ‘homegrown’ militants in India graduates from ISI-supervised terror schools in Lahore, Waziristan belt, and PoK. There are, however, reports that lately terror training camps have also sprouted in Kashmir where there is a deep Pakistani penetration. All terrorists, Indians or Pakistanis, are actively backed by the Pakistani army when they enter India clandestinely through the international border (IB) or the Line of Control (LoC).
Pakistan has been emboldened to launch terror attacks in Punjab because the long spell of Akali rule in the border state has seen secessionist, Pakistan-backed Khalistanis raising their heads because the state government has been ‘soft’ towards them. Punjab has also been overtaken by the problem of drugs, mostly smuggled from Pakistan. Pro-Khalistan slogans were raised days before the Dinanagar attack at a meeting addressed by the chief minister.
Fugitive Khalistani leaders live in Pakistan. They cannot enjoy the hospitality of the ISI indefinitely unless they show some ‘results’, like rekindling the unrest and violence that was witnessed in Punjab before it was crushed. The Pakistan-based Khalistanis are able to keep in touch with their sympathisers in India. There can be no doubt that they have sleeper cells in India. While the government devises a strategy for a robust response to terrorism directly exported to India by Pakistan, it is equally important to neutralize extremists’ cells that have grown here and there in India.
(The writer is a freelance journalist based in Kashmir) .
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Scoop News and Scoop News does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
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