The war hysteria being built up in Pakistan in response to New Delhi’s demand for dismantling its terrorist network and handing over of 40 fugitives in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist strike has left the Indian government perplexed and, to some extent, amused.
Even though Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani today said his country did not want a war with India, the media has been reporting massive war preparations by the military along the Indo-Pak border. The Pakistani Rangers, a border defence force like the Border Security Force (BSF) in India, has been replaced by the Army. And the government there has cancelled leave of all military personnel.
On this side, the BSF, which guards the Indo-Pak border, has reported feverish activity on the Pakistani side. “The troops are seen digging trenches and building fresh bunkers in Rajasthan, Punjab and Jammu sectors,’’ said a BSF source.
New Delhi has so far played cool to Pakistan’s game-plan. A defence ministry spokesman explained to Business Standard that the government had neither cancelled leave of defence personnel nor was a war being contemplated. “However, we continue to keep a close watch on the other side and will respond with suitable action,’’ said Defence Spokesperson Sitanshu Kar.
Indian leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have clarified that India wants Pakistan to act against terrorists and has no intention of going to war. “War is not the issue, the real issue is that Pakistan must act against terrorists,’’ Singh said recently. New Delhi has conveyed this to Islamabad through diplomatic channels as well.
In New Delhi, the South Block office of the Ministry of Defence looks as normal and it was before the Indo-Pak relations lapsed to a yet-another low. However, analysts see Pakistani’s game-plan as a clever strategy by its army, which wants to wriggle out of its commitment to fight a virtual army of Islamic insurgents comprising the Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan in its North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
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A report from Washington quoted Pakistani intelligence officials as claiming that 20,000 troops have been moved out of the Afghan border to the Indo-Pak border.
Pakistan’s army is under tremendous pressure from the US and other western allies to wipe out the insurgents in its tribal areas. Recently, the insurgents, who are otherwise sworn enemies of Pakistani Army, offered to end hostilities to lend support to the army against India. “Islamabad is trying to ward off pressure from the US to act on India’s demands by threatening to scale down the war against terrorists in the NWFP,’’ a senior authority in the government said.
Islamabad has already scaled down its proposed aerial attacks on insurgent bases in the Swat Valley, which is a virtual den of terrorists in the frontier province.
PTI reports: India has informed Pakistan that it has not engaged in any sort of troop build-up along the frontier and sought firm action against terrorist camps and militant groups operating from the Pakistani soil.
New Delhi has also told Islamabad that it had no plan for a military action but wanted a combination of “executive action and judicial processes” against terrorist elements like the Lashker-e-Toiba and its front organisation, the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, which have been linked to the Mumbai attacks.
This message was conveyed during Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal’s meeting with Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir.