Three months later, Pakistani-based guerrillas mounted an assault on the Jammu and Kashmir State Assembly building, and two months after that they launched a brazen attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi. Much to the pleasure and surprise of people on both sides of the divide, she announced resumption of the stalled composite bilateral dialogue between India and Pakistan.
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India must recognize that talking to Pakistan is no guarantee against terrorism, just as not talking to Pakistan can not ensure India of a terror-free environment.
“As far as Pathankot attack is concerned, there is definitely a link with Pakistan”.
Meanwhile, a source in the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of the Punjab police, said, “As the JeM suspects have been picked up in a sensitive matter (Pathankot attack) all of them can not be produced before a court of law till the completion of the investigation”.
“The Pathankot terror attack was carried out by non-state actors. Or we will not come out of the same sixty eight years old routine”. The huge Pathankot airbase is spread over 1,900 acres and keeps India’s fighter jets.
India has given specific leads under which specific detentions should be done, they said.
JeM, that was proscribed during the Musharraf regime, is an extremist group of Deoband Muslim hardliners. Pakistani newspapers report that Masood has been taken into “protective custody”. However, it’s the other Sharif – Pakistani army chief Raheel Sharif – who holds the key. The attack left seven Indians dead. The JeM is also diehard anti-Shia and now promoting “jihad” in Syria to topple Bashar al Assad regime.
India will seek from Pakistan the copies of the FIRs that have been lodged against those behind the attack.
Pakistan had mooted the proposal on Wednesday after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and attended by the chief of the country’s army and external intelligence agency ISI. The charge of “false flag”; also loud-mouthed by a Pakistani security expert, is so laughable that one can only recommend mental examination for all those making it. But he was later released as the case dragged on despite weekly hearings.
In the anti-India Hurriat Demonstration Pakistani and Islamic flays are furled with Pakistan backing to them. Pakistan has to give up its traditional hostility to India and prove its bona fides in this behalf. Maybe, maybe not. “The Pakistan Army feels like they can control these groups, but they have a mind of their own”, Haqqani told me. The group is believed to be based in Pakistan’s section of Kashmir.
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While no charges have been filed against Azhar as yet, G. Parthasarthy, India’s former high commissioner to Pakistan, said that “what has happened is setting the process for custodial interrogation”.
