India will Increase War Hysteria against Pakistan

                                  

                                                              By Sajjad Shaukat

In the aftermath of the terror attack at a military base in Uri, close to the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan, India is deliberately increasing war hysteria against Pakistan.

India has deliberately creaking war-like situation against Pakistan. Hence, with the SAAR summit scheduled in Islamabad in November has been postponed, under a shadow following a boycott by India, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. On September 30, 2016, New Delhi also shut down the Friendship Bus Service which runs between Lahore and Amritsar. Earlier, following war-mongering diplomacy, Indian also threatened to dissolve the Indus Water Treaty of 1960.

The situation developed after the Uri base assault has clearly proved that with the help of Indian intelligence agencies, particularly RAW, India has itself arranged the Uri base attack not only to defame Pakistan, but also to achieve a number of sinister aims.

After the Uri episode, without any investigation, India’s top civil and military officials, including their media started propaganda against Pakistan by accusing that the militants who target the Uri base came from Pakistan’s side of Azad Kashmir and the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba controlled by  Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) were involved in it. Under the mask of the Uri base assault, India started mobilization of troops near the LoC to wage a limited war with Pakistan, while considering surgical strikes on the Azad Kashmir.

In this regard, a few days before the attack at the Uri base, Indian Army Chief Gen. Dalbir Singh Suhaag had stated that India has to be prepared for “swift, short nature of future wars” because of frequent ceasefire violations by Pakistan and its “new methods” used to keep Jammu and Kashmir on the boil. His statement also endorsed the fact that New Delhi itself orchestrated the Uri base drama of to create war phobia.

New Delhi claimed on September 29, 2016 that it carried out surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the LoC in Pakistani side of Kashmir and inflicted heavy casualties.

On the other side, Pakistan Army released identities of two soldiers, who embraced martyrdom in unprovoked Indian shelling on Pakistani border posts along LoC.

In a statement, the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) rejected Indian claims, saying there has been no surgical strike by India, instead there had been cross border fire initiated and conducted by India. Pakistani troops befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing across the LoC.

The statement said, “The notion of surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by Indian to create false effects. This quest by Indian establishment to create media hype by rebranding cross border fire as surgical strike is a fabrication of truth. Pakistan has made it clear that if there is a surgical strike on Pakistani soil, same will be strongly responded.”

And Indian soldier has been captured by the Pakistan army, while Indian soldiers have also been killed in the episode of firing across the Line of Control.

DG Lt. Gen, Asim Saleem Bajwa said on October 1, 2016 that the military was certain of India having suffered casualties and was hiding details of it. He reiterated that the country’s armed forces were fully prepared to respond to any aggression.

Meanwhile, the representatives of The Washington Post and The New York Times, who visited the villages adjoining LoC in the disputed Kashmir region have reported that the people they met there told them that there were no surgical strikes.

Reports suggest that myth of Indian surgical strikes have been exposed. Hence differences exist between the civil and military leadership—as to how cover the falsehood. In this regard, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Country’s Army Chief Gen. Dalbir Singh have decided to prepare a ‘fake video’ of surgical strikes so as to pacify the Indian public and media.

In this context, Indian Express wrote on October 5, this year, “Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam on Wednesday attacked BJP  even as he continued to face flak from several quarters for suggesting army’s surgical strikes could be “fake” Unfazed by the heat, even from within his party, Nirupam fired a fresh salvo accusing BJP of trying to extract political mileage out of the national security issue with eyes set on ensuing  elections in the state to be held next year.”

It is mentionable that since July 8, 2016 against the martyrdom of the young Kashmir leader Burhan Wani by the Indian security forces in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) in wake of continued sieges and prolonged curfew, Indian forces have martyred more than 100 innocent persons who have been protesting against the martyrdom of Burhan Wani.

In wake of new phase of uprising in the Indian held, pressure on the Indian government led by BJP Modi has been mounting both domestically and internationally.

In this respect, A. S. Dulat, former chief of India’s spy agency RAW, published in the magazine, ‘The Wire’ on August 27, 2016 said “Pakistan’s role is not the only catalyst for the crisis, talks about the need for the Indian government to start talking to separatist leaders in the Hurriyat Conference, Pakistan, and other important political players.” Indicating as to how Vajpayee’s and Narendra Modi’s strategies on Kashmir are poles apart and elaborates on why Kashmiris warmed to Vajpayee, he stressed, “India should engage in principled dialogue with people in the Valley, instead of taking a naïve and aggressive line.” His condemnation of the Modi government for not talking to Hurriyat and for its high handedness in IOK is spot on. He rightly concludes that the Kashmiri uprising is 100% indigenous.

While, in response to the letter of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, on August 19, 2016, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored the killings of the Kashmiris in Indian-held Kashmir, and urged India and Pakistan to settle Kashmir and other issues through dialogue by offering his “good offices”.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Sharif had pledged to emphatically highlight violence against the innocent Kashmiris in the IOK during the annual session of the UN General Assembly. While, addressing the General Assembly on September 21, 2016, Prime Minister Sharif said that Kashmiris had to face atrocities and barbarism from India, which made Burhan Wani, the face of freedom movement. He added, “Pakistan fully supports the demand of the Kashmiri people for self-determination, as promised by several Security Council resolutions. Their struggle is a legitimate one for liberation from alien occupation.”

It is due to these reasons that Indian security agencies arranged terror assault at the Uri base to divert the attention of international community from the war of liberation in the Indian controlled Kashmir, as it has, now, been accelerated.

Pakistan denies any role in cross-border terrorism, and has called on the United Nations and the international community to investigate atrocities it alleges have been committed by the security forces in Indian-ruled Kashmir.

As regards terrorism-related events of India, this could be judged from the incident, when on April 6, 2008 in a house of the fundamentalist outfit Bajrang Dal in Nanded, a bomb went off. The investigation proved that the militants were found in bomb-making. Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra arrested a serving Lt. Col. Srikant Purohit along with other army officials, indicating that they were helping in training the Hindu terrorists, providing them with the military-grade explosive RDX, used in terrorist attacks in various Indian cities. ATS further disclosed that Lt. Col. Purohit confessed that in 2007, he was involved in bombing of Samjhota express (Train between Pakistan and India in which a majority of Pakistanis travel), which burnt alive 70 Pakistanis.

Regarding Hindu terrorism, the then Indian Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde pointed out on January 20, 2013 that organized training camps run by the fundamentalist parties; RSS and BJP (Ruling party of India) were promoting Hindu Terrorism. He also explained that these extremist parties were behind the Samjhauta Express, Meccca Masjid and Malegaon blasts.

While, Indian top officials and media had been accusing Pakistan-based banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and ISI of these terrorism-related incidents, including Mumbai terror attacks of November 2016, the Indian parliament assault of December 13, 2001 and militants’ attack at Indian Air Force Base in Pathankot, which occurred on January 2, 2016.

It is of particular attention that on July 19, 2013, the Indian former home ministry’s official and ex investigating officer Satish Verma disclosed that terror attacks in Mumbai in November 26, 2008 and assault on Indian Parliament in January 12, 2001 were carried out by the Indian government to strengthen anti-terrorism laws.

Nevertheless, all these terror attacks were planned by India security agencies to defame Islamabad and ISI and Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

As regards the terror attack at the Indian Air Force Base in Pathankot, Indian media and top civil and military officials started claiming that the attackers had arrived from Pakistani Punjab’s Bahawalpur district, and had links with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Pakistan’s primary intelligence agency, ISI. But, despite Islamabad’s cooperation with India like formation of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) consisting of professionals to investigate the Pathankot attack, crackdown against the militant group Jaish-i-Mohammad—lodging of a First Information Report (FIR) in relation to the incident, New Delhi failed in providing any proof of Pakistan’s involvement in the Pathankot episode.

Indian authorities did not cooperate with Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team which visited India to probe into Pathankot attack. The JIT members visited Pathankot Airbase on March 29 where Indian National Investigation Agency officials briefed and showed them the route from where the attackers stormed the airbase.

Sources said that the lights along the 24-km perimeter wall of the Pathankot airbase found to be faulty on the eve of the attack. The Pakistani investigators were allowed to enter the military airbase from the narrow adjacent routes instead of main entrance and their duration of the visit was just 55 minutes, enough to take a mere walk through the airbase. The JIT could not collect evidence in this limited time.

The sources also pointed out that the visiting team was only informed about the negligence of Boarder Security Force (BSF) and Indian forces. It was disclosed that at the time of the assault, the BSF was sleeping, even though they had been alerted of a possible attack 48 hours earlier.

India’s orchestrated drama of the Pathankot incident could also be judged from the fact that earlier, Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had said in confusion that New Delhi would not allow access to the JIT into the base, though it was allowed on very limited scale to fulfill the formality. It can undermine the seriousness of bilateral commitments to find the truth.

As a matter of fact, Ajit Doval, the ex-spymaster who is now National Security Advisor of Indian Prime Minister Modi is the real author and controller of India’s offensive-defensive doctrine. Besides planning various terror attacks in Pakistan as part of Indian offensive-defensive doctrine, Ajit Doval also advised to arrange various subversive acts inside India and to shift the blame game to Pakistan like orchestrated drama of Gurdaspur episode, boat incident etc. to defame Pakistan and its security agencies.

In this context, on January 2, 2016, the terror attack at Indian Air Force Base in Pathankot was preplanned under his directions.

It is noteworthy that on October 2, this year, Indian security agencies orchestrated another drama at Baramulla town, northwest of Srinagar where suspected militants fired on a military camp in Indian-held Kashmir and killed one trooper—two weeks after the Uri base assault.

Nonetheless in this connection the following points are notable:-

Indian army was tasked to prepare for a strike and successful infiltration but army decline to guarantee safe ex-filtration.

Air Force told Indian political leadership that it has lost the element of surprise and now will have to face Pakistan Air Force, in case of any attack.

Intelligence Bureau urged to avoid major conflict as it would cause major Muslim uprising in Kashmir, and other Muslim majority areas of India.

Ministry of External Affairs (India) was tasked for diplomatic isolation of Pakistan which it badly failed.

RAW has been takes to plan execute a covert strike which should speak by itself being an Indian response to Uri. RAW has been asked to select a major Intelligence establishment for said purpose. Along with above, RAW has been asked to speed up execution of its plans to assassinate Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim or any one of these.

Pakistani fishermen in Indian jails might also be used to stage Mumbai attacks-type drama to further exploit the situation and defame Pakistan.

Notably, taking note of Indian threat of war, Pakistan’s armed forces have become high alert, and Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Gen. Raheel Sharif said on September 23, the Army will defend “each and every inch” of Pakistan “no matter what the cost.” He has again warned India against any prospective aggression against Pakistan.

Nonetheless, in the present circumstances, the BJP-led Modi government which is increasing war-hysteria against Pakistan in wake of intermittent firing across the LoC by targeting the villages of Azad Kashmir is badly mistaken, if it overestimates India’s power and underestimates Pakistan’s power. As Pakistan lacks conventional forces and weapons vis-à-vis India, so, in case of a prolonged conflict, Pakistan will have to use nuclear weapons and missiles which could destroy whole of India, resulting into Indian political suicide.

Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com