‘Collective mechanism’ will end ‘scourge of terrorism’? – Tavleen Singh

Let us start with two questions. Where is Dawood Ibrahim? Where is Maulana Masood Azhar? Answer: Pakistan. These two ghastly creatures live in that country with the full protection of the Pakistani state, because in a military dictatorship, getting on the wrong side of the dictator is usually punishable by death. The Pakistani army also has a military intelligence network called the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) Intelligence, which has acquired legendary skills department, so, if they wanted these criminals jailed or dead, they would be. Instead, Dawood runs a successful business empire and is such an acceptable member of Pakistani society that his daughter married Javed Miandad’s son without anyone in Pakistan finding the alliance strange.

Masood Azhar spends his entire time organising a jehad against India, which he despises as a country of idol-worshippers and polytheists, because according to his fanatical interpretation of the Koran, we are enemy territory (Dar-ul-Harb) until we are all killed or converted to Islam. His description of his arrival in Dar-ul-Islam, Afghanistan under Taliban rule, in exchange for the passengers of IC 814, chills me to the bone every time I read it. Google him up, and you will find the full account in his autobiography, `From Imprisonment to Freedom’, meanwhile let me give you a starter portion. This is how he describes the hijackers, who killed a young man for nothing and starved and tortured innocent men, women and children for several days, without a qualm.

Terrorists only wished to avenge atrocities by India

‘As I watched mesmerized, two masked men came down from the plane by a rope ladder. One of them was wearing a beautiful suit while the other was in a safari dress. Both of them were armed with revolvers and grenades… a storm of emotions washed over us. Those hijackers who were being called extremists and terrorists were overcome with emotion. Tears welled from their eyes.

Had the world seen those tears, it would have been forced to think what was it that had driven these softhearted young men into taking that extreme step? A step, which was condemned by the whole world? Certainly, it was the atrocities committed by India, its barbaric, inhuman treatment which had driven these young men’.

Maulana Masood then proceeded onwards to his home country, where he has lived happily ever since. His ghastly colleague, Omar Sheikh, also exchanged for the passengers of IC 814, went on to plot the savage murder of Daniel Pearl and was an acceptable member of Pakistani society till international pressure, put him in jail.

I tell you all this in the context of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s offer last week, to set up a joint mechanism with Pakistan to fight terrorism. Our new Foreign Secretary, Shankar Menon, tells us proudly that a collective mechanism will be effective in ending the ‘scourge of terrorism’ from which both countries suffer. Neither the Prime Minister nor his officials have so far given us details of how this ‘collective’ endeavour is going to work, but I imagine that it will mean that we will share intelligence information and exchange terrorists. As a gesture of goodwill, could Pakistan begin by handing over Dawood and Maulana Masood Azhar?

No, of course not. And, in any case who can we give them in exchange. Are we harboring terrorists as dangerous as these two? As for swapping intelligence information, what can we tell them that the ISI does not already know about the highly trained modules that it has planted in our cities. Are we ready to give them advance information about the modules we may accidentally find? Would this not enable them to make them disappear only to emerge elsewhere? If we are not going to be able to exchange intelligence information, what would the ‘collective mechanism’ achieve?

Pakistan friend or foe?

My own view is that it is madness to even consider such a move, especially for a `secular’ government, that is already being seen by ordinary Indians as being too soft, when it comes to dealing with terrorism. It would also be the clearest indication to date that the Prime Minister does not have a consistent, coherent strategy where national security is concerned, and that is very, very scary. The message that this `collective mechanism’ is going to send to our security forces is that they must continue fighting only a defensive battle because we are not sure whether Pakistan is friend or foe. What scares me most is that I can see quite clearly, how a collective mechanism would benefit Pakistan and I can also see that our friendly, neighbourhood military dictator is merely changing tactics and not his ultimate goal. He is good at doing this as we have seen from the complete turnaround he affected after 9/11. What I remember from that speech made, if I remember correctly, on January 12, 2002 was the reference he made to how Prophet Mohammad had also retreated in a battle against the Jews, only to come and vanquish them another day.

For some reason, the American State Department missed this reference and General Musharraf became their closest ally in the war on terror, despite revelations that his nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan was running an export business in nuclear secrets. The mysteries of American foreign policy elude me, but surely, we need to be more careful before we start talking about bi-lateral cooperation with a country that we know harbors some of the most evil terrorists in the world.

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