Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah’s revelation that not only was there clear evidence that India was behind last year’s blast in Johar Town, Lahore, near the house of Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, but that seven people had been arrested, indicates that it is more than high time that this evidence is taken to the international community. Many of the details seemed more to do with some spy thriller than with the normal interaction of two states. At her press conference a day after Rana Sana’s, on Wednesday, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar said that the arrests showed that India was fomenting terrorism in the region, and said that the Foreign Secretary was presenting all foreign missions a dossier detailing what India was doing, and that the dossier would also be presented to the UN Secretary General. She noted that India was presiding over UN Security Council meetings on terrorism while practising it herself. Ms Khar’s Ministry is going to be responsible for taking the case to international forums, and must be ready to build up a case so convincing that it will not only convince the other country, but overcome the deliberate blind eye that is shown by states which have commercial interests in India.
Pakistan must devote its efforts to ensuring that other countries also accept that such behaviour is unacceptable. Pakistan might also do well to get FATF to look at how India finances the terrorist operations, and to stop being used by India using it against other states, as it did while Pakistan was on the FATF grey list. If Pakistan takes the route of litigation, such as at the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court, it must ensure that its case is rock-solid. Pakistan should also notice that there seems to be an upsurge in Indian activity, which is why the Johar Town case has followed so soon after the Kulbhushan Jhadav case. RAW could also be bad at this, which is why its agents get caught. It could also be because of increased activity. However, now that the Army has decided to stay out of politics, its agencies should have resources freed up, which would be fruitfully deployed on anti-enemy counterintelligence. This would be an unexpected benefit of the agencies getting out of domestic politics.
