On the face of it, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has made an eminently reasonable demand. Indeed, while speaking to the passing-out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy (a peculiarly appropriate occasion under the circumstances), his suggestion was more a proposal, that India have an independent and neutral probe into the Pahalgam massacre, offering to cooperate fully with such a probe. His Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, has claimed that he will pursue the perpetrators to the last. If he was sincere, he would accept the Pakistani offer. However, the inconsistencies in the FIR of the incident indicates that he has much to hide. Therefore, the proposal is likely to fall on deaf ears. That is what India has done in the past.
From the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast, India has staged false-flag operations which it has blamed on Pakistan, and then treated with deafening silence all Pakistani offers to cooperate in the investigations. After the Samjhauta Express attack, there were the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Then there was the 2016 Uri attack, followed by the 1019 Phulwama attack. The same drama is being repeated over the Pehelgam attack. India has tried to use these offers to drag into Indian purview individuals it wants to take into custody, not merely because it suspects them to be behind terroristic activities, but so that it can cover up its failures before its public with Pakistani bogeymen. India should realise that the use of the attack to ‘suspend’ the Indus Waters Treaty cannot be taken lightly, and thus an investigation is necessary, and while meeting Indian needs of independence, should also meet Pakistani needs for neutrality. This implies that before a selection is made of the actual investigators, both sides should agree on a body to select them fro m, such as the Indian Supreme Court, Indian Police Service officers, or even Jammu and Kashmir Police officers.
While a joint team of police officers from both India and Pakistan might be best suited to track the crime, Indian need to conduct all investigations itself must not be ignored. There is a more sinister force at work, however, that the Indian government does not want a genuine probe, because it already knows the whole story, which it itself scripted, so that it could lay the blame on Pakistan.
