lIndia, Pakistan talks at Thimpu — A way forward

The much awaited bilateral talks between the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan concluded in Thimpu on 6th February ostensibly on a satisfactory note. Both the sides refrained from hurling conflicting comments post the interaction. Both the foreign secretaries agreed that India and Pakistan need to restart their dialogue process for resolving all issues that ail the bilateral relationship. Prior to the talks, the Indian officials indicated that terrorism issue will also come up for discussion which apparently did as the media persons quizzed Pakistan’s foreign secretary on terror related incidents. Terrorism has become a global phenomenon as each nation struggles to root it out from their national fabric.

India for long has used the terror issue for stalking the bilateral talks despite the fact that it continues to shy away from accepting its own home grown terror network. If India suffered in Mumbai incident, so did Pakistan in Samjautha Express incident. Both were terror incidents. As such, it would have been prudent for India to have agreed to expedite its investigations on Samjhauta Express terror incident as Pakistan sought to link it with that of Mumbai incident for cooperation in dealing with terrorism. Without showing any inclination or enthusiasm for an early end of Samjautha Express’s investigations and then asking Pakistan for expediting Mumbai’s terror incident, that too without provision of fool proof evidence, is just not morally correct. The involvement of Hindu terrorists in the Samjautha express incident has been many times confirmed even at the highest level in India. The obvious off and on handling of 2007’s Samjautha terror incident to take its perpetrators to task has denied the justice to the families of the 42 brutally massacred Pakistanis. Despite a lapse of four years, India is no where near to completion of its purported investigations and how many more years it will take, is anybody’s guess especially under the shadows of growing Hindu terror clout. Read More