SOUTH ASIA: Tensions between Pakistan-India Climb Higher

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Dec 22 2001 (IPS) - Tensions between India and Pakistan continued to climb higher, along with concern over their tit-for-tat accusations in the wake of last week’s attack on the Parliament House here, which New Delhi accuses Islamabad of having played a role in.

On Saturday, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, on a visit to China, joined the fray. He said that Islamabad “regrets the very arrogant and knee-jerk response” of the Indian government — New Delhi’s recall Friday of its high commissioner in Pakistan to protest Islamabad’s alleged role in the aborted attempt to blow up Parliament House.

Musharraf said Islamabad would not respond in the same way to the move by New Delhi, which says two militant groups supported by Pakistan in disputed Kashmir was behind the Dec. 13 Parliament attack.

The tough rhetoric between the two sides persisted, with Indian officials saying “all options” are open to New Delhi and a Pakistani government spokesman saying the country would “fight it out” in case of war.

Gen V P Malik, who served as army chief during the Kargil war in Kashmir between India and Pakistan in 1999, said he perceived the two countries edging ever closer toward war following the attack on the Indian Parliament.

Malik said any “war gaming” would do well to take into account the fact both countries were armed with nuclear weapons.

“Since the December 13 attack on Parliament, we have seen no attempt on the part of Pakistan to take action against the organisations involved,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Nirupama Rao said at a press conference Friday.

“In view of the complete lack of concern on the part of Pakistan and its continued promotion of cross-border terrorism, the government of India has decided to recall its high commissioner in Islamabad,” she said.

India has identified the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (Soldiers of God) as “terrorist groups” responsible for the December attack and demanded that their backer, Islamabad, move to shut them down within days.

The recall of India’s high commissioner underscores how sharp bilateral ties have fallen in recent days and weeks.

Neither country recalled its high commissioners through two full-scale wars in 1965 and 1971 and through an undeclared war (Kargil) in 1999, noted G Parthasarathy, India’s former foreign secretary.

Parthasarathy, who was high commissioner in Islamabad during the war at Kargil on the Line of Control (LoC), which runs through the disputed territory of Kashmir, said Friday’s action was pointer to the seriousness with which India viewed the December attack.

Following that incident, both India and Pakistan began moving troops and armour to their common border, fuelling widespread worries on both sides of yet another armed conflict between the neighbours.

The two countries hold portions of Muslim-majority Kashmir, the complete possession of which has been the basic cause of a running dispute that has flared up into armed conflict on several occasions.

Some 50,000 people are reported to have died in armed militancy in Kashmir over the last 12 years, which India has consistently accused Islamabad of sponsoring. Pakistan has denied the charge and says the conflict is an “indigenous fight for freedom”.

Pakistan High Commissioner in New Delhi Ashraf Jahangir Qazi said that India had failed to produce adequate evidence of his country’s involvement in the attack and said that police statements based on arrests lacked credibility. Qazi said Pakistan had offered India the “fullest cooperation”.

India’s state home minister I D Swami called “ridiculous” an offer by Pakistan to participate in a joint investigation into the December terrorist strike, which India considers the worst in a series that included the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in Afghanistan in December1999.

The plane was ultimately released in exchange for the release of three ‘jihadist’ militants from prison in India, one of whom, Maulana Masood Azhar, went on to form the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) group in Pakistan.

Minister for Information Sushma Swaraj clarified that the recall of India’s High Commissioner, Vijay Nambiar, only meant “downgrading” the mission that would continue to function under a lower ranking official.

As a sign of India’s acute displeasure, bus and train services between the two countries have also been ordered suspended from Jan. 1.

Immediately after the attack, Qazi was summoned to the foreign ministry and issued a verbal demarche that asked Islamabad to arrest the leaders of the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Toiba, ban them and freeze their accounts.

On Thursday, U.S. President George Bush ordered the freezing of the assets of the Laskar-e-Toiba, calling the group a “stateless sponsor of terrorism” that hoped to “destroy relations between Pakistan and India and undermine President (Pervez) Musharraf”.

“It is a terrorist organisation that presents a global threat and I look forward to working with New Delhi and Islamabad in a common effort to shut it down and to bring the killers to justice,” Bush said in a televised speech marking 100 days after the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Bush described the attack on the Indian Parliament as “only the most recent terrorist attack on the institutions of Indian democracy”. One more example, he said, was the Oct. 1 attack on the provincial assembly of the Indian part of Kashmir, which killed 50 people.

India’s ruling nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called for strikes across the Line of Control on training camps run by ‘jihadist’ militant groups.

But Washington, trying to calm the latest tensions in a South Asia region already volatile because of the war in Afghanistan, urged restraint. This provoked India’s mild mannered prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to say in Parliament that it was better to advise restraint on Pakistan.

Vajpayee called the December attack on Parliament no ordinary terrorist attack, but a challenge to Indian democracy and institutions.