Pakistan baffles, India grapples

It is sad to see how Pakistan, almost every time, ends up disappointing India and its overtures for peace. Even before the scheduled meeting of the director generals of military operations (DGMOs) has taken place,  reports of fresh firing along the Line of Control have emerged, with Indian Army claiming that our western neighbour has deployed special troops along the LOC in Keran sector to facilitate infiltration by terrorists, the spectre of the two prime ministers’ peace initiative and talks at the sidelines of UN General Assembly in New York haunts the people of both countries. Evidently, there’s a massive disconnect between what Nawaz Sharif pledged at the diplomatic round table and what the grim realities on the ground indicate. 

Despite Manmohan Singh’s clear exhortation to Pakistan that it needs to shut down its ‘terrorist machinery’ in order to build the road to an amicable peace platform, somehow Islamabad manages to bring down the expectations with its mindless acts of violence, whether perpetrated by fringe militants or troops on the Pak Army’s payroll. Hence, the latest reports of infiltration and the counteroffensive launched by the Indian side to prevent the same, even though they are being dismissed by the Pakistan government and the army alike, point to the widening gulf between the hyperactive militant wings, especially those under the ISI, and the state machinery itself, which seems to have lost all control over the shocking operations by the either the rogue appendages of the army or the militants under their oversight.

While the Indian side claims that this is not an infiltration but a full-blown incursion, with the army asserting that this is a larger version of jihadist infiltration which has been taking place along the LOC for a number of months now, what is needed now is a multi-pronged approach to tackle the danger. Clearly, the Sharif-led Pakistan Muslim League government has much to do to cleanse its army of rogue elements, but what must be remembered is that the rhetoric of peace must not be discontinued.