The terror attack on Indian airbase at Pathankot is a condemnable act and the whole world has condemned it immediately including Pakistan. As per Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry statement, “building on the goodwill created during recent high level contacts between the two countries, Pakistan remains committed to partner with India as well as other countries in the region to completely eradicate the menace of terrorism afflicting our region”.
However, without any investigation India and her warmongering media started a blame-game that, Pakistan is behind this attack. The accusation and blatant blame-game has once again exposed its secret motive of defaming Pakistan and it no serious attitude for a cooperative future Indo – Pakistan relationship. The presentation of Pathankot incident by India and her media has raised many questions and it would be prudent if these are answered first before leveling accusations against others. Following needs to be looked into and answered:-
Why was the SP of a sensitive border district like Gurdaspur, where terrorists had struck a Police Station barely 6 months ago, was out at night without his security detail in another neighboring district?
The vehicle SP claimed to have been hijacked was a Mahindra XUV 500 and not exactly an unmarked private car. It had the blue VIP/Police beacon on top. Terrorists were most likely to have had some idea of the utility of a vehicle with a blue beacon on top.
There is absolutely no clarity on how exactly did the terrorists stop the vehicle and hijack it, along with the SP, Salwinder Singh, his friend Rajesh Verma and their cook?
The claim that the terrorists let the SP, Salwinder Singh and his cook off because they were ‘unaware’ he was the SP can fool only the gullible. It defies credulity that terrorists would let off anyone who could sound the alert and give away their presence and location, thus jeopardizing their mission. If they had to get rid of him and the cook, they would have simply killed both. For terrorists on a suicide mission, it doesn’t matter that they had killed someone just to get rid of excess baggage. If the SP claims that he got away pretending to be a civilian, he is lying. They did not let his friend Verma off.
Apparently, only later did they got to know from Verma that they had let off a SP and then they decided to kill Verma. He apparently pretended to be dead and escaped. How cock and bull can this story get? The same terrorists, who had hijacked an Innova before that, had brutally killed its driver so as to prevent him from raising an alarm. But the same terrorists became so incompetent that they let off the SP and the cook and later carried out an execution so inept that this Verma survived without an injury? Really?
There were initial reports in the media that intelligence agencies had intercepted calls by the terrorists to their handlers in Pakistan and one apparently had even called his mother revealing that they were on a suicide mission. Now the story is that it was actually Verma who has told this to the police because the terrorists had made those calls from his mobile while driving him around. Nice, isn’t it? That the terrorists had no means of communication with their handlers or relatives and that those in Pakistan would pick up a call made from an unknown Indian number defies credulity.
Long after the government had claimed that all the terrorists had been neutralized, Lt. Col Niranjan Kumar and 3 soldiers of NSG were killed in an blast from an IED that the terrorists had left there (probably booby trapped). Question arises, where did they get all this time if they had been detected while breaching the first security perimeter?
How did the terrorists roamed around in the streets of Pathankot carrying over 40 kg of bullets, 30 kg of RDX, guns and grenades for 26 hours before attacking the IAF base. Why did command of the counter operation was changed thrice? It has emerged that at least three officers of the Army, IAF and the National Security Guard headed the operation at different stages:-
o When the planning to counter the terrorists started in Delhi around 1 pm on January 1 - 14 hours before the first shots were fired in Pathankot at 3:30 am on January 2 - two columns of the Army were rushed to Pathankot.
o Around 1 am on January 2, two-and-a-half hours before the terrorists struck, an NSG team from Gurgaon landed at IAF base. Around mid-morning, the Western Air Command Chief, Air Marshal SB Deo, landed in Pathankot to “oversee” the operation.
o The Director General of NSG, RC Tayal, arrived in the evening and “oversaw” the operation in coordination with the IG (Operations), NSG.
300 x NSG Commandos, 160 x IAF Commandos and 70 x Black Cat participated in neutralizing the terrorists at IAF base Pathankot. Why it almost took 4 days to clear the base?
As regards the case of cross-border terrorism, India has shown ambivalent approach which can be judged from some other developments. In this connection, on July 27, 2015, three gunmen dressed in army uniforms killed at least seven people, including three civilians and four policemen in the Indian district of Gurdaspur, Punjab. Without any investigation, Indian high officials and media started accusing Pakistan, its banned militant outfits and intelligence agencies for the Gurdaspur incident. Indian Police remarked that the attackers were from Indian-held Kashmir, and some said that they were Sikh separatists, while Indian Punjab police chief claimed that the three gunmen were Muslim, but as yet unidentified. Contradicting speculations, India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh told parliament that the gunmen came from Pakistan.
Khalistan Movement Chief Manmohan Singh stated that the Gurdaspur incident is “a conspiracy of Indian secret agency RAW to defame Pakistan.”
Notably, on December 31, 2014, prior to the US President Obama’s second visit to New Delhi, Indian intelligence agencies orchestrated a boat drama to defame Pakistan, allegedly reporting that a Pakistani fishing boat as a Pakistan-based outfit group Lashkar-e-Taiba was intercepted by Indian Coast Guards, off the coast of Porebandar, Gujarat. And Indian Coast Guard crew set the boat on fire and it exploded. The Indian government had claimed that it had foiled another 26/11-type attack of Mumbai. But, its reality exposed Indian terrorism, when some Indian high officials admitted that there was no such boat which came from Pakistan.
In case of the Mumbai terror attacks of November 26, 2008 and assault of the Indian parliament of December 13, 2001, without any enquiry, Indian high officials and media had started deliberate blame game against Pakistan by alleging that Mujahideen and the banned Lashkar-e-Tayba based in Pakistan were behind those terror events.
It is of particular attention that on July 19, 2013, the Indian former home ministry 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.
Nonetheless, it clearly proves that under the cover of the orchestrated Pathonkot episode, India wanted to postpone the secretary-level dialogue, while shifting the the blame game to Pakistan, as New Delhi is non-serious in resolving all disputes, especially Kashmir issue with Pakistan.