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| Indo-Pak peace process has been hijacked | | Diferences within UPA Govt. | |
B L KAK
NEW DELHI: A serious discomfiture seems to have been caused to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, within some in his government talking in dissimilar voices. How the Prime Minister will tackle the situation remains to be seen. What is being discussed now is how some persons in the Congress-led coaliton government at the Centre have hijacked the Indo-Pakistan peace process.
Manmohan Singh initiated the joint teror mechanism with Pakistan recently. At present, he is in a predicament. The reason: His own rank and file have triggered a situation, where entirely reversing the Indo-Pak peace process could now be posible. While the Congress feels that Pakistan has to be held responsible for July 11 Mumbai bomb blasts that ripped apart the local trains killing 187 people, the contradictions emerging within the government over Pakistan’s involvement is simply getting too embarrassing for United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
A day after National Security Adviser(NSA), MK Narayanan, created a flutter saying India had no ‘clinching evidence’ against Islamabad for its alleged involvement in Mumbai blasts, Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, claimed having proof of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) increasing its (subversive and noncompliant) activities across India. Narayanan’s statement that India has good evidence of Pakistan’s role in Mumbai blasts and not a ‘clinching’ one marginalised the very investigation of probe agencies that clearly stated the involvement of ISI in the terror act that was, purportedly, carried out with the support of dreaded outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba.
“There are some pieces of the puzzle missing,” Narayanan said. “If the courts decide they want the full puzzle, it will be difficult. So I am hesitant to say that the evidence is clinching. But it is pretty good (against Pakistan),” he said, not realising that it would backfire against his own government, embarrass his own Prime Minister. Seeing that Narayanan’s statement made in a TV interview had boomeranged, the government tried to do the necessary damage control. Home secretary VK Duggal, said that India had ‘clear evidences’ of Pakistan’s involvement in the Mumbai blasts. “Our investigation is based on evidences that clearly point finger towards Pakistan,” he said.
The question is if India really has ‘clinching evidence’ against Pakistan, as claimed by Ministry of Home Affairs, why is it taking so long to hand it over to Islamabad? New Delhi has time and again reiterated that it would hand over the said evidences to Pakistan, where the role of ISI in the blasts is said to be certain. But it has not happened so far. Pakistan says it is still waiting for the evidences to come. The real genesis of contradiction within the government is said to have emerged three months ago; even before the Prime Minister left for Cuba, where he met up with Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in Havana.
It is said that a substantial section within the government was against his meeting with President Musharraf, let alone signing a joint terror mechanism agreement. However, Manmohan Singh did not oblige, and his new Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, even issued statement saying that Pakistan, like India, itself was a victim of terror.
Manmohan Singh, who said this could be the last chance for striking peace with Pakistan, even favoured resuming the stalled Composite Dialogue Process with the foreign secretary level talks. While all that is on card, the Union government is not sure how to handle the Mumbai blasts probe that points out Pakistan’s role in the act of terrorism, said officials. In a clear admittance of fact, top officials maintained that the mishandling of the issue is owing to several reasons. One probable reason could be that the Mumbai blast investigation, in contrary to what Ministry of Home Affairs claim, is still not complete. If the ‘missing puzzle’ that NSA talked about is any indication then Mumbai police’s probe is not over as yet.
The question of who was behind Mumbai blasts has still not been answered. But believe in Mumbai police chief AN Roy, who claimed that the probe agencies had cracked the case. On September 30, he told a Press conference that “we have cracked 7/11 and have strong evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in the serial bombings.” So does that mean NSA disbelief Roy?
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