Opinion | Pakistan’s New Ruse: Call For A ‘Neutral And Transparent’ Probe Into Pahalgam
Pakistan keeps devising new ruses to nurture its pathologies: revenge for 1971 loss; a 1,000-year war with India; tryst with radical Islam; and craving for 'jugular vein' Kashmir
Pakistan’s call for a “neutral and transparent" probe into the Pahalgam massacre is just a ruse to fool the world. For a straightforward reason: the earlier investigations of similar attacks failed to bring the guilty to book because Islamabad did not allow that to happen; this time it will be no different, but the investigation will give the powers that be time till the issue fizzles out.
Addressing the army-cadets passing-out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Kakul, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said, “The recent tragedy in Pahalgam is yet another example of this perpetual blame game, which must come to a grinding halt. Continuing with its role as a responsible country, Pakistan is open to participating in any neutral, transparent, and credible investigation."
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On the face of it, Sharif’s words sound very sensible, even statesmanlike. Here is a country whose head of government is not afraid of a neutral and transparent inquiry. Pakistan is a nation that, according to its leaders and public figures, is itself a victim of terrorism. See what is happening in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; see how terror groups are slaughtering the security personnel and citizens of Pakistan. Islamabad wants a peaceful resolution of all issues, including the Pahalgam outrage. An impartial probe will help punish the guilty and clear the air.
On the other hand is bellicose India, whose government, people, and media are clamouring for war. A closer examination, however, will tell a different story.
There was a confession by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in a German publication, Spiegel, on April 4, 2010, admitting his country’s role in setting up the terror groups. Asked if he formed militant underground groups to fight India in Kashmir, he said, “They were indeed formed. The [Pakistan] government turned a blind eye because they wanted India to discuss Kashmir."
There is also a detailed revelation of Pakistan’s role in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks that claimed 166 lives, many of them foreign nationals, by Tariq Khosa. A former director general of the Federal Investigation Agency, Pakistan’s premier law enforcement agency, Khosa wrote in Dawn on August 3, 2015, “Pakistan has to deal with the Mumbai mayhem [November 26, 2008], planned and launched from its soil. This requires facing the truth and admitting mistakes. The entire state security apparatus must ensure that the perpetrators and masterminds of the ghastly terror attacks are brought to justice. The case has lingered on for far too long. Dilatory tactics by the defendants, frequent change of trial judges, and assassination of the case prosecutor as well as retracting from original testimony by some key witnesses have been serious setbacks for the prosecutors. However, cognizance was taken by the Islamabad High Court which directed the trial to be concluded within two months."
He went on to highlight the “pertinent" facts: “First, Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani national… Second, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists were imparted training near Thatta, Sindh and launched by sea from there… the ops room in Karachi…"
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba [LeT], was responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The US offered a $10m bounty on his head in 2012. It offered another $2m bounty for Abdul Rehman Makki, Saeed’s brother-in-law and co-founder of Lashkar.
A Pakistani court jailed Hafiz Saeed for 31 years in connection with terrorism financing in April 2022. A recent media report, however, said that Saeed lives in a fortified house, which is protected not only by his supporters but also by Pakistani security personnel.
Lesser terrorists freely roam in Pakistan. So much for Islamabad bringing terrorists to justice.
Yet, the Pakistani establishment has the cheek to ask India to agree to a neutral and transparent probe into the Pahalgam atrocity. It also continues to ask for evidence of the involvement of any Pakistani state and non-state actors in the outrage.
Worse, many international mainstream publications have fallen prey to the Pakistani propaganda. Consider the self-explanatory headline of the prominent British publication, The Economist—"India must prove Pakistan’s complicity in the attack in Kashmir". To be fair to The Economist, it did call the perpetrators the “terrorists [who] brutally killed 26 men in Jammu & Kashmir on April 22nd". BBC, which keeps moving Leftwards, infamously called the murderers “militants." After the unspeakable attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, too, the BBC refused to call the culprits terrorists.
Pakistan will keep conjuring up new ruses to nurture its pathologies: revenge for its humiliating defeat in 1971; a thousand-year war with India; its tryst with the most regressive forms of Islam; and, of course, attempts to possess its “jugular vein", Kashmir. Sadly, many liberals, including some in Pakistan, are supporting the unholy mullah-military nexus. Thankfully, the world is not paying much heed to Pakistan’s bunkum and bombast.
The author is a freelance journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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