Two weeks have hardly passed when in Ufa summit meet, Pakistani Prime Minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif had told Prime Minister Modi that his country would cooperate in anti-terror measures in order to ensure peace in the region and pave the way for meaningful bilateral relations. We had welcomed the gesture of Pakistani president but we had also expressed apprehensions that he may not be given space by the army to develop normal relations with our country. Our prediction has proved true. So far the Government has not come out with a statement that would name the organization that has undertaken the Gurdaspur attack in which seven persons, including an SP have been killed and 15 persons have been wounded. But the manner in which this attack was made is almost identical to the attack of Pakistan terrorist on Kathua police station on March 20 this year. Terrorists were clad in military uniform, carried sophisticated arms, picked up a Maruti car to move around, sprayed bullets on a passenger bus and finally assaulted the police station of Dinanagar and killed an SP and three home guards besides other civilians. Therefore all circumstantial evidence shows that it is the handiwork of the Pakistani non-state terrorist groups. We know that two of these namely Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad are more active in J&K. There is hardly a week when the LeT is not issuing warnings that it will complete its agenda of separating Kashmir from India.
Pakistan Government is unable to control these terrorist groups in their nefarious designs against India. The reason is that these groups function under the patronage and support of Pakistan army. Army is the functional Government in Pakistan. We have already said that Pakistan army is wary about Track II diplomacy behind which the two Prime Ministers want to carry forward their covert talks to restore normalcy in their relations. Evidently, some progress must have been reported by the insiders to Pakistan army, which, in turn, has galvanized one of the two terrorist organizations into action.
The question is what should be the response of the Indian government to these perfidies? How long can India go on pocketing the insult? Moreover, how long will innocent Indians get murdered in cold blood for no fault of theirs. What should we expect from Track II diplomacy if it is truly going on? What are its achievements? These are the questions which Indian interlocutors at the Track II diplomacy should raise and seek an answer. The war between Pakistani democratic forces and the diehard army is an internal affair of Pakistan and the army wants to bring it to our soil. Pakistan Government cannot absolve itself of the responsibility of disarming and disbanding the terrorist groups under the pretext of “non state actors”. In making that pretext, Pakistan clearly admits that there is diarchy in the state and that Pakistan army is not the State within the State as the saying goes, but the real state that wields the power of decision making.
From our point of view, the first fallout of Gurdaspur attack could be another long spell of break in Track II talks and re-imposition of the stalemate that had been broken in the Ufa sideline talks between the two prime ministers. Secondly, the naked aggression on the border town of Dinanagar in Gurdaspur district has happened by the terrorists crossing the international border. This shows that Pakistani terrorists have made change of tactics and finding it hard to sneak in from the LoC or IB in J&K have now made it clear that they could sneak in at any point on the international border. This should leave India free with the option of paying back in the same coin. Evidently, the Indian Government will take steps to ensure strict security and safety of international border in Punjab and Rajasthan as well. We will not say that the security along the Jammu-Pathankot border has been slack or deficient of proper security arrangement. The attackers seem to have made much survey of the area where they operated and knew where the police station was. They have carried reconnaissance with efficiency. It is here that our border intelligence has failed to detect them. The simple formula is that our security arrangement along the entire Indo-Pak border needs to be upgraded and all gadgets provided to detect infiltration whenever and wherever it is made. We have full praise for the security forces that took the challenge and liquidated all the three terrorists.
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