The Pakistan Prime Minister, in an interview published in a segment of the print media, has taken pains to stress that his country wanted peace but India was not prepared to help. Not only that, he has also accused India of inciting dissidents in Sind.
In that part of Pakistan live the Bihar Muslims who had migrated at the time of Partition. From that time till date, they have been treated by their Central government as less than third class citizens. Among them but not as part of them are the fundamentalists. They differ on many things but agree on opposing the Centre.
The Pakistan Army was asked to mount an attack on them. The sufferings inflicted and the atrocities involved were explained away by Islamabad as deterrent action taken against thugs and dacoits. There was no question of infiltration of Indian trouble-makers.
All the time Pakistan was maintaining its training camps for extremists of Khalistan and Kashmiri and helped them savage innocents in the Kashmir valley. The Pakistan Prime Minister says that no such thing ever occurred or allowed to occur and that he respects India’s sovereignty.
All this goes against what Britain’s high-ups who visited India and Pakistan had found. Even the US which would not have the heart to fault Pakistan for anything because it is its ally for its neoglobalist polices had advised in a firm tone to desist from creating trouble for India.
The funniest part of it all is that, in the interview under reference, the Pakistan Prime Minister has said that he wants the Kashmir dispute settled through bilateral talks between India and Pakistan. All the time, Pakistan persists in raising this issue at every conceivable international forum.
The strangest part of the Prime Minister’s defence is that whatever is said against India should be seen for what it is –the responsibility of the Pakistan government to bring to the notice of the world the emotions stirred by the alleged atrocities committed against Kashmir Muslims.
When the supremo of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front organised the long march to India, official spokesmen of Pakistan were talking in two voices. They said first that their government would do their best to contain the march but they should not be faulted if they were unable to act in the face of a mass upsurge.
Then, when the US Stale Department issued a stern piece of “advice’ which was verity an order, they retracted. They then began saying that their government would not permit the march. Of course, the government of Pak-Occupied Kashmir ostensibly acted on its own but really on the direction of Islamabad.
They are now interpolating the cricket feature on their television with “news” about Indian atrocities in Kashmir. The cable television channel operators have quickly intervened to correct this but this is mentioned to expose Pakistani perfidy which aims specifically at tarnishing India’s reputation abroad.
e-mail the writer at
[email protected]