Over the Years
The joint efforts of the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to end animosity between the two long-estranged neighbours finally bore fruit in February 1999 with commencement of a weekly bus service between Delhi and Lahore. However, this spectacular achievement with great promise was short lived as Pakistan Army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf played the spoiler by embarking on his ill-fated Kargil misadventure.
One and a half decades later, on the intervening night of May 22/23, 2014, four heavily armed Pak backed terrorists armed wearing suicide vests made an attempt to storm the Indian consulate in Herat city of Afghanistan. In the fierce gun battle that ensued, Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel guarding the consulate eliminated two of the attackers, while the remaining two were despatched by the Afghan security forces and all Indian nationals were safe and unharmed.
Even though attacks on Indian facilities in Afghanistan by Pakistan Army sponsored terrorist groups weren’t something unusual before the Taliban seized Kabul in 2021, the timing of the Herat consulate attack certainly was! It came just two days before newly elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s oath taking ceremony for which Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been invited, and this was no coincidence.
Two days after this attack, the then Afghan President Hamid Karzai disclosed that Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security had confirmed that Pakistan Army’s proxy terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba [LeT] had carried out this attack. While sceptics dismissed this claim as part of Karzai’s regular anti-Pakistan rant, but a month later, the US State Department also confirmed that this attack was handiwork of LeT and re-designated LeT as a terrorist organisation.
The time-line of events add undeniable credibility to the inference of Pakistan Army’s complicity in the Herat consulate attack.
It was on May 21, 2014 that Islamabad confirmed receiving an invitation requesting Sharif’s attendance for Modi’s oath-taking ceremony, but gave no confirmation regarding his attendance, which was indeed intriguing. The very next night, India’s consulate in Herat was attacked by a suicide terrorist squad with the obvious intent of causing extensive casualties to the diplomatic staff. Had it succeeded, this attack would have created such strong anti-Pakistan sentiments in India that Sharif would no longer be welcome. This is what the then Pakistan Army chief Gen Raheel Sharif must have thought and that’s why he didn’t bother to approve his namesake’s visit to Delhi.
However, on realising that the Herat attack had failed to cause any casualties to Indian nationals and after the prime minister’s brother and Punjab province Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s personal request, Gen Sharif on May 24, reluctantly permitted the prime minister to attend Modi’s oath-taking ceremony. Needless to say, the Army chief didn’t have any other option!
Writing in The Diplomat, senior correspondent Sanjay Kumar expresses the same sentiment by mentioning that “Pakistan’s delay in accepting the invitation not only exposes the fault lines in Islamabad between the civilian and military establishments; it also gives a hint as to the causes of the attack on the consulate int.” [Emphasis added].
Why is Rawalpindi Sabotaging Efforts to Normalise Indo-Pak Relations?
By drumming-in a concocted existential threat from a ‘Hindu India’ into the minds of its people, the Pakistan Army has cunningly legitimised the enormous extra-constitutional powers it wields. So, Rawalpindi knows very well that the moment Indo-Pak relations normalise and peace prevails, its hallowed image of being the ultimate bulwark against Indian hegemony would take a serious hit. As a result, people would start questioning the Army’s supremacy over all other organs of state, and this would be the beginning of the end of Rawalpindi’s reign in Pakistan.
In addition, portraying India as a country determined to annex Pakistan, Rawalpindi has been able to apportion the lion’s share of the country’s budget for extravagant defence expenditure purportedly to dissuade India from satiating its alleged desire to destroy Pakistan.
While Rawalpindi has made several high-end military hardware acquisitions, the fact that no less than a dozen former officers of the Pakistan armed forces have been able to acquire extremely costly properties in Dubai and even the opulent lifestyle of senior armed forces officers living in Pakistan clearly suggests that a substantial amount of money meant for defence expenditure is systematically being pocketed by them.
So, in order to preserve its turf and continue enjoying a host of unauthorised perks and privileges, Rawalpindi has no other choice but to continue tilting at windmills to keep fear psychosis among its people alive!
The Present Day
All said and done, Rawalpindi deserves due appreciation for its devious machinations and pre-emptive actions which have ensured that relations between Delhi and Islamabad don’t normalise. So, when former Pakistani Prime Minister and PML-N president Nawaz Sharif recently mentioned that “On May 28, 1998, Pakistan carried out five nuclear tests. After that Vajpayee Saheb came here and agreed with us [to usher peace]. But we violated that agreement [by the Kargil misadventure]…it was our fault,” this admission must have certainly rattled Rawalpindi.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office [FO] in its statement after Modi’s re-election as India’s prime minister stated that “We hope that India will take steps to create a conducive environment for advancement of peace and dialogue and resolution of long-standing dispute for the mutual benefit of the peoples of Pakistan and India.” Though merely a diplomatic courtesy, this overture too must have upset Pakistan Army’s top brass. So, even before New Delhi could respond, Rawalpindi decided that it was time to act and scuttle any move towards rapprochement by orchestrating a terrorist attack through its proxies.
A Terrorist Attack Most Foul
Sunday’s terrorist attack on a bus in Reasi district of J&K has ISI written all over it. Since it was carrying pilgrims returning after visiting a temple, selection of this bus in particular as the target ensured that all victims belonged to a single religious denomination, which would definitely compound the intensity of anger and rage within the concerned community.
Moreover, the attack took place just before it became dark and this gave the attackers several advantages. One, it enabled them to bring down aimed fire at the hapless pilgrims and thereby inflict maximum casualties-the fact that besides the nine occupants killed, ten others sustained bullet injuries highlights this fact. Two, the ambush site next to a ravine was deliberately selected as it would cause the ill-fated bus to plunge downhill thereby increasing the number of casualties.
Three, with darkness enveloping the area soon after the attack, rescue operations would have become more time consuming and this unavoidable delay could well have increased the death toll. Lastly, with more than 10 hours of darkness after the attack at their disposal, the terrorists involved would have got adequate time to make good their escape.
The Way Forward
With terrorists finding it extremely difficult to carry out major strikes in Kashmir Valley due to alertness of security forces, ISI appears to be in the process of shifting the pivot of its sponsored terrorist activities to areas that are less guarded. First it was the Rajouri-Poonch area, and now it’s come down to the Jammu region. So, the message is loud and clear- come what may, the Pakistan Army will not stop its ongoing proxy war. Hence there’s a crying need to accept this reality and not only brace up to boldly face this scourge, but also actively explore the institution of dissuasive measures as well as effective forms of retribution including those in the grey zone domain.
Once the gloves are off, playing the game by the rules makes no sense!
