indiaanditsneighbours
16 News the Newsbehind JULY 08, 201940-odd members of such organisations
who had been taken into preventive
detention. The probe, inevitably,
turned out to be an eyewash as no
‘credible’ evidence was found against
the suspects. LeT founder Hafi z Saeed
was placed under house arrest in 2009
as well as 2017, but let off as the
prosecution failed to build an airtight
case against him. Such half-hearted
measures have failed to reassure India
and the world at large on Pakistan’s
avowed sincerity in tackling terrorism
emanating from its soil.
“It’s been over two months since
Masood Azhar was declared a ‘global
terrorist’ by the UN, but Pakistan has
not yet specifi ed how and to what
extent it has enforced the sanctions
imposed on him.......”
HAFIZ SAEED: PAKISTAN
MEDIA’S VERSION OF HIM
The view from Pakistan is
surprisingly similar. Khaled Ahmed,
Consulting Editor, Newsweek Pakistan,
accepts that Pakistan has acted “under
pressure” against Hafi z Saeed and his
12 aides over terrorism-fi nancing.
Little mention has been made
on the activities of Hafi z Saeed, he
says and “very little has appeared in
the press about the politics of Hafi z
Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba and its mother
organisation, Dawat wal-Irshad,
because of the close coordination it
enjoyed with its ‘handlers’.”
Hafi z Saeed, writes Ahmed, had
been running stealth courts across
Pakistan in violation of the constitution
of Pakistan: “Th e supra-constitutional
Sharia courts, established by Jamaat-
ud-Dawa (JuD), operate across the
country and only the Lahore court of
this parallel judicial system has issued
verdicts in 5,550 cases, including
murder trials”.
Ahmed also says that Pakistan that
pretended to run a ‘case’ against Hafi z
Saeed’s strongman, Lakhwi, had come
to nothing for “lack of evidence”. Th is
is despite Pakistani offi cials telling the
anti-terrorism court judge, Chaudhry
Habibur Rehman, on November 10,
2012, that terrorists who attacked
and killed over 166 innocent people
in Mumbai on November 26, 2012,
belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba and
that they had trained in various
cities of Pakistan. Th e mastermind of
this attack, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi,
was under trial at Adiala Jail in
Rawalpindi.
PAKISTAN WILL NOT
GIVE UP ITS SUPPORT TO
TERRORISM
In the opinion of Harsha Kakar
(retired Major-General of the Indian
Army), “Pakistan can neither give up
its support to terrorism nor stop being
desperate for talks on multiple issues,
including Kashmir. It is aware that
neither militarily nor by supporting
terrorism can it regain the valley. It
may create a self sustaining militancy,
but that would not be of any major
benefi t and would remain confi ned
to a small region. On the other hand,
in case India decides to provide
open support, financial, material
and diplomatic to all anti Pakistan
movements within Pakistan, they
would be in doldrums.”
India’s recent stand has been not
to take any talks initiative. For
talks to happen there has to be an
‘environment of trust, free of terror,
violence and hostility.’ This is not
possible at present.
Crucial to any breakthrough, is
the role of the Pakistan army which
“believes that once it stops export
of terrorism and reduces the only
leverage it has on India, there may be
no reason for India to come forward
to negotiate on Kashmir. Th is feeling
has been compounded by the fact
that despite all wars and subsequentceasefi res there was no discussion on
resolving Kashmir. Th eir only hope
remains that if terrorism rises to the
level that it can hurt Indian interests,
India may accept talks. In this case, it
would be Pakistan which would talk
from a position of strength.
“Th is concept is the opposite of
Indian thinking.”COMMENT
PAKISTAN’S ARMY ‘SELECTS’
WHOM TO ELECT
Mahindra Ved
Pakistan’s main opposition parties
have taken to calling Imran Khan the
country’s ‘selected’ prime minister, to
which the latter has retaliated forcefully
by saying that leaders of these parties
have themselves been ‘selected’ at one
time or the other. Th e reference to
the military’s role in the country’s
political processes, although alluded,
is obvious. Th e media, on its part, has
cautiously said the prime minister was
referring to the Pakistan Peoples’ Party
(PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League
-Nawaz (PML-N) founders’ allegedly
close relationships with the military
strongmen of their era.
It would be diffi cult to categorise
its use as bravery or foolhardiness that
could annoy the army, or something
born out of the opposition’s anger and
frustration. Actually, all the accusations
are correct. Besides numerous others
who held smaller posts, Zulfi qar Ali
Bhutto was a 1960s find, of Field
Marshal Ayub Khan. Bhutto turned
against his benefactor and survived
the next military dictator, Gen. Yahya
Khan, despite his role in the break-
up of Pakistan in 1971, to become
president and then prime minister in
the 1970s. Bhutto was removed and
hanged by Gen. Ziaul Haq who, in