Pathankot villains

Stopping bilateral talks would mean playing right into the hands of the terrorists

In the week gone by, a lot happened, a lot changed. Already. For starters, we entered a new year. Close on the heels of year-end revelling coupled with pseudo gibberish about peace, hope and all that, was a gun attack on a public bar in Israel, another one on a French restaurant in Kabul, the execution of a Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia and the Saudi embassy being set aflame in Tehran. And if this wasn’t enough mayhem in the first three days of the new year, days after Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif’s supposedly unplanned rendezvous in Lahore, India was at the receiving end of a brutal terror attack in Pathankot, apparently to avenge the execution of Afzal Guru back in February 2013.

In the light of the improved atmospherics following this India-Pakistan-bhai-bhai meeting, the new funda being bandied around is, “Don’t point your gun at the neighbour, point it at the terrorist who wants to thwart the peace talks.” Even if one were to embrace this philosophy for a minute and not point fingers, it is time for Pakistan to rise to the occasion and demonstrate that it is genuinely against home-grown terror. It hasn’t helped Pakistan that the United Jihad Council, an umbrella jihadi group based in Azad Kashmir, has taken responsibility for the incident.

While it may be argued that these olive branches are getting India no more than a good whipping and humiliation besides an acute loss of innocent brave-hearts, stopping these talks would mean playing right into the hands of the terrorists. The dialogue must continue to prove a point to the villains. The good news is that in the wake of the newfound Christmas bonhomie between the prime ministers, the two spoke at length, and Sharif is believed to have assured Modi that Pakistan’s National Security Adviser is investigating the “specific and actionable information” provided by India. Everyone is waiting for the outcome, if any, with bated breath. The ball is in Pakistan’s court.

I hope that the evidence on the terror architects gathered by the Indian side will be acted upon in serious terms by Pakistan and not merely presented to courts that invariably acquit the miscreants because the judges either fear for their lives or come under pressure from the establishment.

Anyway, the close coordination between the governments so far is seemingly a positive sign that political establishments are at least willing to test the efficacy of a diplomatic approach in yielding results. If not, the clouds over the future of India-Pakistan engagement are only going to get darker. India hasn’t reacted as belligerently as it would have in the past, which gives credence to reports that it had received credible intelligence on the attack from sources “on the ground” in Pakistan. This is the time for the latter to go beyond shedding crocodile tears, condemning incidents and pledging support, all of which are boring and passe. Rather than scream from rooftops that it is the victim of terror than the perpetrator, Pakistan needs to prove its sincerity and integrity to the world by cooperating actively in rooting out the miscreants to avoid being viewed with fury, suspicion and scepticism. This is the only way for it to embark on a long quest for image change and pave the way for better relations between the warring nations.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2016.

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