It is easy and often valid to blame Pakistan but finding the truth is much more difficult

I loved the irony. First, the United States issued an advisory to its citizens warning of terrorist

attacks in India. A bomb was likely to go off in Delhi’s crowded Connaught Place area, the Americans said. The Indian government responded that it was aware of the

background to the threat. Pakistani terrorists had been infiltrated into India. Though the Indian home ministry said that it was fully in control of the situation, the Americans were not satisfied. Their advisory was not withdrawn and their warnings were plastered on the world’s TV channels.

 

   But even as we were waiting for Pakistani terrorists to set off explosions in Connaught Place in the centre of Delhi, an alert policeman noticed a car bomb except that the car was not parked in the centre of Delhi. In fact, it was parked in the centre of New York. The terrorists had attempted to strike on schedule. But it wasn’t Connaught Place they were targeting. It was Times Square.

 

   The ironies piled up. Even as the Americans scrambled to investigate the terror attempt, the Pakistani Taliban issued a video taking credit for the car bomb. The Americans said they were sceptical but then their own investigations led them to an American citizen of Pakistani origin. Apparently, the suspect admitted that he had planted the bomb. Further, it turned out that he had been trained in bomb making in Pakistan and that he still had associates in Pakistan.

 

   Even as America was puzzling out the topsy-turvy nature of its intelligence – right idea, right country for the source of terror, but completely wrong on the target nation – other Pakistanis were making the news. In Bombay, Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving perpetrator of the 26/11 Bombay attacks was found guilty and sentenced to death. And in Washington, American officials appeared to agree to finally grant access to yet another Pakistani with an American passport: David Headley.

 

   Indians made the obvious point. America is happy to hail Pakistan as its ally in the fight to re-install the Taliban in Afghanistan (yes, that battle has changed direction in recent months) but no matter how many times Hillary Clinton clinks glasses with the Pakistani foreign minister, Pakistan will remain a breeding ground for terror. And while the US will demand all kinds of proof from India about Pakistani involvement in terrorism, it will not bother to wait for proof before arresting Pakistanis when the threat is to its own cities.

 

   Some of the Indian indignation is justified. It is a sad but undeniable fact of life that much of what is routinely described as Islamic terrorism all over the world is actually Pakistani terrorism. You can find Pakistani links to nearly every significant terror attack over the last decade. The London bombers were of Pakistani origin, the Bombay attack was a Pakistani operation, and even the 9/11 attackers (who were Arabs) had been trained in Pakistan.

 

   We all know the conclusions that follow from this evidence. As India is Pakistan’s neighbour and its traditional enemy, we are the prime target of Pakistani terrorism. Further, it is as clear that the world will not do anything to help us unless, of course, Pakistanis launch well-publicised attacks on Western locations.

 

   But I often wonder if the easy availability of Pakistan as the prime suspect in every terrorist attack on India sometimes leads our security services to come to knee-jerk conclusions.

 

   In recent months, our policemen have blamed terrorist attacks either on Pakistanis or on home-grown militants, armed, trained, and financed by Pakistan. Either way, it is Pakistan they hold responsible. And given Pakistan’s record in this sphere, the charges find many willing takers.

 

"The key to fighting terror is not having to catch the terrorist after an attack is successful. The point of the fight against terror is that we should be able to apprehend the terrorists even before they have had a chance to strike."

   But are our security forces neglecting to conduct the investigations that are an essential part of the fight against terror? Is it just too easy to blame everything on Pakistan?

 

   I ask because recent events have made me wonder how accurate the claims made by our policemen are. I refer, of course, to the discovery that Hindu organisations may have been responsible for the violent attacks in such cities as Hyderabad and Ajmer.

 

   When the attacks first took place, the police were convinced that they were the work of home-grown jihadis who had been put up to it by the ISI. So sure were the investigators of their facts that we were fed innumerable details of what was supposed to have taken place: who hatched the conspiracy, how they recruited their allies, how they planted the bombs, and who they took orders from.

 

   But now, it is the investigators themselves who are telling us that Hindu extremists were responsible for these attacks. Assuming that the investigators have got it right, two questions need to be asked. One: why is it a knee-jerk reaction for Indian investigators to always blame Pakistan and Pakistani-financed Indian stooges? And two: given that each time the police have claimed to have found evidence of jihadi involvement, they have dazzled us with a wealth of detail are we not entitled to ask how these details were procured? Especially since all these details now seem to have been made up?

 

   It is nobody’s case that Pakistan is not responsible for most of the terror attacks against India. Now can anyone deny that there is a Pakistani link to many jihadi attacks whether they occur in New York or in Bombay.

 

   But are our investigators simply taking the easy way out and blaming Pakistan for everything? Worse still, are they not even bothering to conduct proper investigations, preferring to rely on confessions that are obtained from suspects through coercion?

 

   I am prepared to leave aside such cases as the two men who were acquitted of involvement in the Bombay attacks on the day that Kasab was convicted. Perhaps they were guilty but were let off only because the Bombay Police could not build up strong cases.

 

   But what about cases where the police themselves have told us two different stories, first blaming Pakistan-backed terrorists and then arguing that it was Hindu terrorists who were responsible?

 

   The key to fighting terror is not having to catch the terrorist after an attack is successful. The point of the fight against terror is that we should be able to apprehend the terrorists even before they have had a chance to strike.

 

   My fear is that because our investigators are taking the easy way out by merely rounding up the usual suspects and making the usual accusations each time there is an attack, India loses out on an opportunity to break the real terror networks.

 

   It is easy – and admittedly, often valid – to blame Pakistan. But finding the truth is much more difficult.

 

   And it is only the truth that can keep us safe.