The Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs was told on Thursday that dossiers given to the United States and United Nations Secretary General on India’s alleged involvement in terrorism in Pakistan did not contain ‘material evidence’. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, which met with Senator Nuzhat Sadiq in the chair, Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said the dossiers instead contained the “pattern and narrative” of Indian involvement. “The dossiers have been meticulously prepared, but material evidence cannot be shared for the sake of protecting the sources,” he said, adding that the proofs could have only been provided to others in the narrative shape. While it is one thing for the Pakistani state to delude itself and its public into thinking that all of the terrorist elements plaguing the country get their training and funding from across the border, one expects those in charge of foreign affairs to have the wisdom to realise that the UN and US have enough situational awareness to completely disregard the insincere ‘victim narrative’. The Foreign Secretary then proceeded to improbably top the dossier revelation with an even more scandalous one. Aizaz Chaudhry indifferently disclosed that Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), the well known charity front of the Jamat-ud-Dawa (JUD), was neither banned nor under any sort of state observation while the parent organization JUD, for all its notoriety, was merely under ‘observation’ while free to conduct its activities unimpeded. He assured however that the long defunct predecessor of the JUD, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), was indeed banned. India, of course, is not the only country we have intelligence and infiltration problems with. The western border is a similar story in many ways. We have been accusing Afghanistan of aiding and assisting subversion inside our borders, just like they have been pointing the finger at us for nurturing and harbouring their insurgents. And the situation has hardly improved over years. Things got better recently, after the Murree initiative, but did not take long to plunge into the same old vicious circle of accusations and counter accusations. The Pak-India dispute is a matter of increasing concern for the whole region, and indeed beyond, especially since the Modi government took office and turned up the heat. Pakistan’s frustration – and the decision to take the RAW case to US and UN – was, in all fairness, a reaction to India’s stiff new position. But in marketing a hard case and then presenting soft evidence, especially in internationally, will not win Islamabad too many points in circles that matter.
pk.shafaqna.com
