Did India stage the Pathankot attack drama in order to malign Pakistan, Islam?

–Dr. Abdul Ruff

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It is now plain that India is still eager to be seen as a strategic partner of super power USA by ruthlessly promoting terror  operations on Indian soil (not only in Ajmer and Hyderabad Mecca  Mosque, but even in Mumbai and Delhi)  to continue to claim the  dubious status of being a  prominent terror victim. .

Over years, India has successfully presented itself as a prominent ‘terror victim’ to the world, especially to USA and other big powers. The ‘terror’ strategy worked well for New Delhi in the comity of anti-Islamic nations whether or not that is terrorized.

Apparently terror attacks continue unabated in India because Indian regime deliberately wants them badly for claiming to be a prominent ‘terror victim’.  Indian strategists wrongly think such false terror claims would enable India somehow entail a veto on the discredited UNSC.

Repeated terror attacks being perpetrated in India and Pakistan, following the Sept-11 hoax in New York in the most developed nation America with most modern intelligence-surveillance capabilities give the impression that there exists an Indo-Pak official terror link. India as well as Pakistan is eager to retain the nukes in its arms arsenals. It is a fact that the Sept-11 was engineered and executed very systematically by those forces that wanted to malign Islam as a terrorist religion – but the blame was conveniently placed on one Osama and his Al-Qaeda.

On 28 March, a report by Pakistani news channel Dunya News had said that Indian authorities showed "signs of reluctance" when the JIT asked them for information and evidence. "Sketches of the attackers, footage of the closed-circuit television, duty registers of the Border Security Force (BSF), details of the bank accounts, service records, post-mortem report of the driver who died in the car accident at the time of the incident and the FIR of that car’s snatching have not been given to the Pakistani investigation team," a report in Pakistani newspaper Daily Times had said.

The report had further said that post-mortem and DNA reports of the terrorists involved and phone records and information about the commander of Pathankot airbase had not been given to the JIT. The Dunya News report had further claimed that the stances of the Indian government and BSF regarding the terror attack were contradicting each other.

Moreover, the report had said that while Indian authorities had said that terrorists had entered the Pathankot airbase after climbing ten-foot walls, no ropes were found as evidence. These claims by the Pakistani media had come just a day after it was found that Pakistan's electronic media regulatory body (PEMRA) on Sunday had released a statement for the Pakistani media, asking them to be "professional" and "responsible" when reporting on the Lahore attacks, unlike the Indian media.

One has no clues as to why Pakistani investigators were allowed to enter the Indian air force base in Pathankot from narrow adjacent routes instead of the main entrance and the duration of the visit was just 55 minutes, enough to take a mere walk through the military facility. India claims that a Pakistani ‘terrorist’ attack took place at the Pathankot Air Force Station in January this year, in which four attackers and two security forces personnel were killed in the initial battle, with an additional security force member dying from injuries hours later.

The fight looks very similar to the fake encounters in the thick forests and reports are supplied to the press by the military establishment. The real happening might be kept in secrecy.

 On Friday, the Pakistan's Joint Investigation Team (JIT) returned to Pakistan after their five-day visit to India during which all Indian evidence pertaining to the January 2016 attack was shared with them, including the DNA of four terrorists, their identities as well as call records showing involvement of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). The JIT had examined 13 witnesses, including former Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh.

The JIT says the attack was a drama staged to malign Pakistan, according to a report in a Pakistani daily.  It further said that the JIT report, which will be submitted to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the next few days, has even concluded that Indian authorities had prior information about the terrorists. The report also quoted a member of the JIT as saying that the NIA officer's murder in Uttar Pradesh showed that "Indian establishment wants to keep the matter under wraps."

Though just a few days after the Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the Pathankot terror attack India media announced that the four ‘terrorists’ who attacked the Pathankot Indian Air Force base could, according to JIT, be from Pakistan, the JIT has also insisted that the Pathankot attack had been staged by India.

The same source also told media that the JIT concluded that the standoff between the Indian army and "alleged" terrorists ended within hours after the attack, which apparently made it clear that the attack was a drama staged to malign Pakistan. "The Indian authorities made it a three-day drama to get maximum attention from the world community in order to malign Pakistan," Pakistan Today quoted the JIT report as saying. The source also told Pakistan Today that no "major" damage was done to the base and that the perimeter lights at the airbase were not functional on the day of the attack, which apparently raises questions about whether India had prior information about the terrorists.

This is not the first time, though, that the Pakistani media and the JIT have made allegations of hiding evidence against India.

What is truly surprising about the Pakistani JIT report's claim is that it comes just days after the same JIT admitted that the terrorists were from Pakistan. Reports had, in fact, also suggested that Pakistan had enough evidence to link them to extremist group Jaish-e-Mohammad. Moreover, during the beginning of the investigation, Indian investigators had said that the visiting officials did not "contradict" any of the evidence submitted by the NIA. "The fact that they did not contradict or made any adverse comment or observation is a positive sign," sources had told IANS.

The fact that the JIT is now saying that Indian authorities did not provide evidence and is claiming something as absurd as India staging the Pathankot attack shows exactly how dark relations between India and Pakistan truly are. As this report in The Tribune had said, "Cricketers believe that if India and Pakistan were to play more games, it would help both countries to live in peace. They do not realize that at political and diplomatic levels too, both nations play games. This game is called one-upmanship, with surprise as an important element."

Pakistan media reports that the Pathankot terror attack was "stage-managed" by India are seen here as "double-speak" by Pakistan's security establishment. "The report in a Pakistan pro-government daily only shows that ISI and Pakistan Army were doing double-speak. India has provided irrefutable evidence to Pakistan Joint Investigation Team (JIT) during their visit here regarding the involvement of Pak-based terrorists," a government source said.

The news report in a daily quoted an unnamed JIT member as saying that the attack was nothing but "vicious propaganda" against Pakistan as Indian authorities did not have any evidence to back their claims. "Within hours of the assault, all the attackers were shot dead by the Indian security forces. However, the Indian authorities made it a three-day drama to get maximum attention from the world community in order to malign Pakistan," the report added. Rebutting the report, another government source said the evidence provided to JIT can stand international scrutiny and expressed surprise over media reports emerging that the NIA had not provided enough evidence to the visiting team. "The JIT was handed over whatever they asked for which included certified copies of statements of witnesses, DNA reports of four terrorists, memos of articles seized from them," the source said.

Pakistan had made a request under section 188 of Criminal procedure Code of Pakistan for collecting the evidence from the NIA. The call data records of the two phones snatched from Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh and his jeweller friend Rajesh Verma which were used by the terrorists to call a number in Pakistan were also shared with the JIT, the source said.

India also shared the conversation recorded between Nasir Hussain, one of the four terrorists who carried out the attack on IAF base during the intervening night of January 1 and 2, with his mother Khayyam Babber. The NIA has asked for a DNA sample from Nasir's family. The agency has also handed over call recordings of terrorists holed up inside the IAF base with their handlers including Kashif Jaan, who has since been missing.

The Pakistani JIT had asked NIA to hand over swabs of four terrorists identified as Nasir Hussain (Punjab province), Abu Bakar, (Gujranwala), Umar Farooq and Abdul Qayum (both from Sindh). However, the NIA handed over to the visitors the DNA report of the terrorists and asked them to match those with their family members, the sources said.

The Pakistani JIT headed by Additional Inspector General of Police, Counter Terrorism Department, Muhammad Tahir Rai and also including ISI's Lt Col Tanvir Ahmed, had recorded statements of 16 people. The list for recording the witnesses was submitted to the NIA by Pakistani team only.

The 16 witnesses questioned in all included Singh, Verma and cook Madan Gopal. The three were kidnapped by the Pathankot attack perpetrators belonging to the banned Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed on the intervening night of 31 December, 2015 and 1 January, 2016. The ‘terrorists’ had allegedly dumped Verma after slitting his throat and continued their journey with Singh and Gopal before jettisoning them a few kilometres away from the strategic air base at Pathankot.

The ‘terrorists’ entered the air base and mounted the brazen assault on the intervening night of 1 and 2 January. In the fierce encounter that ensued, seven security personnel besides four terrorists were killed.

Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on April 05 accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Government of indulging in dual standards by allowing Pakistan's Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe the Pathankot terror attack, saying that on one hand the Centre preaches 'Bharat mata ki jai' and on the other they allow ISI on Indian soil to verify facts and conduct investigation.  BJP leaders say those who refuse to say 'Bharat mata ki jai’ have no right to live in India but they are unable to control the ‘terror operators’. Kejriwal also trained guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked as to what was the deal between the latter and his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif. The Delhi Chief Minister tweeted: "On one hand they say 'Bharat mata ki jai' and on the other they call ISI to visit India and back-stab 'Bharat Mata'." Modiji has betrayed the nation by inviting ISI. Don't know what the deal between Modi ji and Nawaz is)," he said in another tweet.

Kejriwal ridiculed the double mindset of Modi, BJP and BJP government and they seem to hide the truth about the secret deals with Pakistan.

Indian objective in terror experiments has been multi-pronged: to maintain  the claim of being a terror victim  at par with USA and Russia, keep Pakistan permanently accused of ‘exporting terror’;  force Kashmiris not to press for freedom or sovereignty form India;  come closer to USA and Europe on the issue of ‘jointly fighting terror’,

The way Indian forces prolonged the ‘war’ for days in order to generate New York fire scenario at Mumbai Taj hotel fighting ‘terror ‘ makes the point  pretty clear about Indian mindset to  quickly blame Pakistan.

However, scorning all such fake Indian claims, USA has decided to sell all latest terror equipment to Pakistan ignoring India’s loudest protest against the sale. India would now buy even those latest military goods equipment from USA sooner than later, but that is a different story altogether.

It is high time India considered the limits of nukes as war equipment to be employed  in order to  retain Kashmir , now essentially under military control as Indian government gifted  extra military draconian laws to the military command in Kashmir to deal ’freely’ with Kashmiris Muslims.

India needs to evolve and incorporate humane laws and generous mindset to free the Kashmiris from the military yoke.

Kashmiris need to get back their sovereignty lost to New Delhi soon after, ironically, Indian gained independence form Great Britain.   

Once New Delhi allows sovereignty back to Kashmiris, world would respect India as a serious nation. India then won’t have to resort to terror techniques to be in the news. .