By making an utter mockery of talks in Islamabad, while keeping the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Boundary (IB) hot with ceasefire violations and terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), both Pakistan’s “elected” government and its Army, which calls the shots, have sent a doubtless signal that forget peace, even a reasonable relationship with India is out.
Repeated audio-visuals aired by Indian television news networks of Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s frowns, scowls and unfriendly tone and tenor of speaking left no doubt about his own discomfiture, which should not at all be surprising — what with Daood Gilani aka David Coleman Headley’s confession about the ISI’s role in the 26/11 massacre at Mumbai getting reiterated in public and the all the lies that he was peddling. Two instances of Qureshi’s blatant lies during the talks were his claiming that Indian external affairs minister S.M. Krishna kept ringing New Delhi and his ridiculous snipe at home secretary G.K. Pillai.
The same Qureshi, seen in the much published visuals of chuckling over a drink with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton — their heads touching — in Washington in March this year, reportedly “received a rap on his knuckles” for his personal attack on Mr Krishna from his own Prime Minister, Mr Yousaf Raza Gilani, and later, Ms Clinton, back in Islamabad to hold “most vital” high-level security talks before going to Kabul for the donors conference scheduled for July 20.
The blame game that began after Mr Krishna’s return from Islamabad — him being blamed by the Opposition for not being assertive enough in correcting his counterpart on the spot, him blaming Mr Pillai and not only home minister P. Chidambaram, but even national security adviser Shivshankar Menon supporting the home secretary — has done New Delhi’s Pakistan initiative no good.
While Messrs Krishna and Qureshi talked on the table in Islamabad, the Pakistan Army was busy maintaining a heightened level of terrorist and military attacks on J&K’s terrain from the LoC in the mountains/hills to the IB in the plains.
A definite pattern emerging in recent weeks was of upping of ante in Srinagar and other parts of the Valley by initially launching a campaign of vilifying the Army and Central security forces and instigating people, including children, and also paying and supplying them with stones to shout slogans and attack the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which was made to fill the gap created by reducing the Army’s presence during the rule of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
A fierce encounter that raged for six days since July 14 in the thick Beri Rakh forests, Mendhar tehsil, Poonch district, where the Indian Army gunned down two Pakistani terrorists, at the cost of Major Amit K. Thenge being killed and 11 other personnel, including a colonel wounded.
Also orchestrated and timed to stymie the talks were a series of ceasefire violations by the Pakistan Army/Rangers firing machine-guns and mortars since June 21, with the aim of creating diversions while pushing in terrorists.
On June 21, about 30 Indian Border Security Force (BSF) bordermen were trapped close to the Zero Line near the Abdullain border outpost (BOP) in Jammu region’s Ranbir Singh Pura sector, where they had laid an ambush to check infiltration of terrorists from across the IB after Pakistani troops opened fire, sparking intermittent but heavy gunbattles. Despite two rounds of flag meetings between the BSF and the Pakistani Rangers, the firing had not stopped from the other side. The BSF had to wait for darkness to set in to launch an operation to rescue the trapped bordermen as their movement would get exposed during daytime. A day earlier, two civilian porters working for the Indian Army were killed and two soldiers injured when Pakistan troops opened fire at Machil sector on the LoC. These violations were timed for foreign secretary Nirupama Rao’s meeting with her counterpart Salman Bashir in Islamabad on June 24.
Between July 5 and 7, Pakistani troops fired at Chak Phagwari, Pindi and Mala Bela Border Out Posts of Jammu sector, all in hours of darkness, in which Borderman Sultan Ali of the BSF was killed and a villager injured. On July 9, Pakistani Rangers resorted to small arms firing along the IB on Khawara Border Out Post in Mawa belt of Samba district. In yet another ceasefire violation, Pakistani troops targeted six Indian posts with mortar and small arms fire in Poonch and Ranbirsinghpura sectors along the IB but there were no reports of any casualties. Fire on five Indian Army posts along the LoC in Krishna Ghati sub-sector of Poonch, about 280 km from Jammu, was swiftly retaliated.
The Pakistan Army/ISI, basically against any talks to succeed, as its very raison d’etre is war against India, is now all the more so because any meaningful investigation/action on 26/11 in Pakistan will attract more attention on its role in not only imparting sailing training to Ajmal Kasab and his group members killed in Mumbai in Pakistan’s dams controlled by the Army. Another reason could well be the likelihood of exposure of its present chief General Ashfaq Kayani, having conceived the plan when he was head of the ISI. Besides all this, the dynamics of US President Barack Obama’s lopsided AfPak policy, only means more trouble for India from the Pakistan Army.
The recent rise in tension in the Valley should not at all have come as a surprise because its genesis was the Amarnath land-related agitation of 2008, which the Pakistan Army/ISI saw as an ideal opportunity to turn the clock back in the State, where four years of a successful cease fire lead to 100 per cent occupancy in hotels and houseboats. In April 2008, the Pakistan Army began violations of the ceasefire, which were gradually stepped up and by early 2009, the pattern that emerged, made its intentions very clear — to regain all previous hubs like Sopore, Baramulla, Anantnag, Pulwama etc, which had been santitised by the Indian Army and to bring back fear and doubt into the lives of the Kashmiri public. What also became very obvious from confessions of terrorists apprehended and radio intercepts, was frustration at most of their attempts to cross over the LoC failing because of tight security of the Army and likewise by BSF on the IB. Reducing the Army’s strength in the Valley under pressure of the PDP and also making it vacate orchards and buildings, for which it was paying rent, only made the job of terrorists regaining control in these areas easier.
New Delhi must muster enough political will to (a) identify the instigators and organisers of mob frenzy and stone-pelting in Kashmir and deal with them appropriately/eliminate Pakistani terrorists occupying the hubs mentioned (b) seriously review its policy and methodology of “talking to the enemy”.
Anil Bhat, a retired Army officer, is a defence and security analyst based in New Delhi