Militant captured again
29 Aug 2015 10:47 PM GMT
On Thursday, a Pakistani militant was captured alive after an encounter with Indian security forces on Thursday, the second this month after Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Mohammad Naveed. “He told us his name is <g data-gr-id="39">Sajad</g> alias Javed alias Abu Ubaidullah and that he is a resident of Muzaffargarh in Pakistan’s Balochistan,” according to a top police official. Earlier this month Naveed was caught alive after the ambush on a BSF convoy in Jammu’s Udhampur district. He told interrogators that he was recruited by the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The arrest on Thursday assumes massive significance in light of the recently-cancelled National Security Advisor-level talks between India and Pakistan.
The arrest, according to New Delhi, will add further credence to its dossier on cross-border terrorism and infiltration perpetrated by Islamabad. However, according to certain foreign policy hawks, the capture of another terrorist presents an opportunity lost for New Delhi. One of the prime reasons why the NSA-level talks were called off was because New Delhi insisted on not explicitly including Kashmir as part of the agenda. However, according to Satyabrata Pal, a former High Commissioner to Pakistan, and current member of the National Human Rights Commission, “if we believe that the problem in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) for two decades has been terrorism by those trained, armed, funded and infiltrated by Pakistan, it was central to the discussions between the NSAs.
It was therefore in our interest to raise this, as we would have. What could Aziz have said in response? That we unleash state terror in J&K? The only evidence he could have produced, at a stretch, was the treatment of the Hurriyat over the last few days.” New Delhi could have presented the arrest of Naveed as living proof that Pakistan continues to support acts of terrorism in Kashmir. The international community, meanwhile, has rejected Islamabad’s argument time and again that the acts of terror it supports in Kashmir are for the latter’s struggle for self-determination. Hopefully, New Delhi can now present its case at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly or the meetings of the DGMOs slated for next month.
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