Pakistan Information & News

Car Bomb Blast

NEW DELHI: Even as India persist with its protests against Pakistan’s refusal to take action against the perpetrators of 26/11, Islamabad diversionary tactics have touched a new blow.

On Thursday, Pakistan pulled another rabbit out of its hat. That the car bomb blast in Lahore on Wednesday, which left a woman dead and 3 others injured, was triggered by four Indians.

Pakistan media, quoting anonymous sources, identified one of the bombers as one Satish Anand Shukla, allegedly a resident of Kolkata.

The stunt, clearly fabricated to justify inaction against Lashkar leaders by drawing a parity between the jihadis who attacked Mumbai and fictional Indian agents, left Indian officials seething with anger.

Senior Indian officials were quick to rubbish the reports in Pakistan media, saying this had not been conveyed to any Indian agency by Islamabad. The Indian High Commission in Islamabad too denied having received any information from the Pakistanis.

“Nothing has been conveyed officially and we suspect this is yet another ploy to divert attention from the real issue, which is to bring the guilty in Mumbai attacks to justice. We don’t believe these reports are true and if they are, we would like Pakistan to inform us officially,” said a highly placed source, adding that it was mischievous on the part of Pakistan authorities not to have confirmed or denied it.

Aghast at the crude ploy, officials also said that India would not have chosen this moment to trigger off a blast in Pakistan, knowing that the bellicose neighbour would leap upon even a small excuse to justify its refusal to cooperate with the Mumbai probe.

The Lahore drama stripped the statement of Pakistan Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani disclaiming hostile intent of any significance. “I assure you that we want excellent relations with India. We want to maintain good relations with India,” said Gilani, adding that in his assessment there won’t be any war”.

The assurance would have meant little even in a normal situation, considering that it is neither Gilani nor his political patron Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan president, who call the shots in the country. But coming on a day when Pakistan’s antics further vitiated the atmosphere and just a day after the political leadership had competed with the generals and Taliban to resort to vicious India-bashing, this appeared devoid of sincerity.

Even as he professed peaceful intent towards India, Gilani said that his government would not act till India provided evidence about the involvement of Pakistanis in the attacks.

With no Pakistani official willing to confirm or deny, the media there had a field day pointing fingers at India for fomenting trouble in their country in the light of the “arrest of the Indian terrorist”. One report where a senior Pakistani police official expressed complete ignorance about the arrest of an Indian was withdrawn later.

Reports claiming that Shukla had been arrested not by the cops, but by intelligence agencies deepened the suspicions about the veracity of the “Indian hand’ theory, as it is the local police who can arrest anyone.

Shukla was claimed to have been arrested barely hours after the blast. Three others were arrested later. A couple of pistols, cameras and maps were seized from Shukla and others. All 4 were described as Indian spies who wanted to carry out more attacks on Thursday at the behest of an Indian intelligence agency.

Pakistan in the past too has resorted to such moves to discredit India’s demands. The source said that this was similar to Pakistan handing over its own list of fugitives to India after India asked Islamabad to hand over 40 men, including LeT founder Hafiz Saeed and JeM chief Masood Azhar.

According to the reports, Shukla had worked with the Indian High Commission in London for 3 years and had been living in Lahore with the assumed name of Munir Ahmed for the past 18 months. A fake identity card was also said to have been seized from him.

Nawaz Sharif

NEW DELHI: If Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive in Mumbai, was indeed from Pakistan then it was time for Pakistan to take “very serious action” and let India know, said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.”

If a Pakistani name is being taken, a man who belongs to a place called Farid Kot or any other place, I think we should take very very serious notice of that. Not just notice, we should take serious action and we should let India know that, here, the action is now being taken against such elements. And it should also be a source of satisfaction to the Indian government, that yes, Pakistan is taking action,” Sharif said in response to media reports that Kasab was from Farid Kot, Pakistan.

“Pakistan must take action in a very transparent manner,” he said in an interview to Indian newsmagazine conducted at his farmhouse at Raiwind on the outskirts of Lahore.

In a significant proposal, he said there should be “a no first attack pact, a no first pact agreement, a no war pact between the two countries and this included both conventional and nuclear”. That, in his view, was the best for both countries and what they should be focusing on.

Dwelling on the troubled relations between the two countries, Sharif said if India had evidence to prove that Pakistani territory was used to export terror into Mumbai, “I think we should put our own house in order”.

Describing the “business of allegations and counter-allegations” between the two countries as devastating, Sharif said when he was prime minister “diplomats from both sides use to get beaten up and there was this tit for tat bashing”.

“I know that no civilized society will accept that - neither India nor Pakistan. These are the only two countries I have seen in my life, acting like this. We did move forward but after the Mumbai attacks, the relationship has moved backwards and that is very painful.