In October 2011, the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Pakistan that they cannot keep on rearing snakes in the backyard and expect them to bite the neighbours only. That moment has arrived for Pakistan. It is regularly being bitten by the same snakes it reared to bite India, as part of its state policy to bleed the country “with a thousand cuts”.
The audacious attack of March 11 by the Balochistan Liberation Army on Jaffar Express train, who took over 400 passengers as hostages, must have been a déjà vu moment for the Pakistan government, its military and its deep state. The Pakistan army paid a heavy price, losing several personnel, besides some of the passengers in the action to set the hostages free, while killing all the militants.
BLA is not the only militant outfit that has been regularly targeting Pakistan establishment, including civilians and defence personnel and even school children. Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan is another militant outfit which is very active and aggressive and has been striking at will. The Pakistan government has blamed India for aiding and abetting terror activities on its soil. It blamed India for the Jaffar Express train attack as well.
It is but natural for Pakistan to blame India, apparently assuming that the way it has been sponsoring and instigating terrorism in India, it must be reciprocating in the same measure. India has repeatedly and rightly denied all these allegations. Unlike Pakistan, terrorism is not the state policy of India. Nor does the country support terrorism in any manner.
Pakistan should look within. People of Balochistan have a genuine grievance against the Pakistan government, which is dominated by Punjabis. Balochistan is a mineral rich area and despite that it is the least developed region in Pakistan. But people’s grievances cannot justify the acts of terror and killing or taking innocent people as hostage.
Pakistan Army did what any army would do to crush such acts of terror, even though it has been involved in fomenting and instigating similar terrorism in the neighbourhood.
May be such incidents, which are taking place in Pakistan at regular intervals now, will make the Pakistan military establishment realise that terrorism eventually comes to haunt and bite you back.
The Pakistan government and its military need deep introspection. While Pakistan’s hostility with India is understandable as the deep state has continuously nourished it and projected India as a perpetual enemy and existential threat, Afghanistan was supposed to be a friend of Pakistan.
Pakistan has a long history of supporting the Afghan rebels, first against the USSR and then against the NATO forces.
The Afghan Taliban, who are ruling the country right now, have all been trained and educated in Pakistan ‘madrasas’.
‘Taliban’ is the plural for the Arabic word ‘Talib’ meaning student. During the presence of the erstwhile USSR army in that country, Pakistan opened special madrasas and seminaries to train and radicalise the Afghan youth for the ‘jihad’ against the USSR.
While the USSR left Afghanistan long back, and the “rebels”, who were called the “mujahideen” took control of the country, Pakistan basked in the glory of victory of having facilitated the exit of a “mighty” empire from its neighbourhood. The USSR later disintegrated.
Then came the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Centre by Al Qaeda, who had been sheltered by the Afghan Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Pakistan was given a clear choice by the United States, “with us or against us”.
The same Mujahideen, Pakistan had prompted and supported for decades, eventually leading to their ascendancy to power, had to be bombed, defeated and chased out of Afghanistan using Pakistan as the base against them.
This was followed by the deployment of NATO forces in Afghanistan with a puppet regime, towards which Pakistan always remained hostile, while supporting the “Taliban”, which eventually seized power, when the NATO troops left. Pakistan again felt like having taken back control over Afghanistan through its proxy, the “Taliban”.
But that feeling did not last long. Today, Pakistan and Taliban have daggers drawn at each other. There have been some border clashes as well. Pakistan has been accusing the Taliban government of Afghanistan of sponsoring terrorism in Khyber Pakhtoonwala, earlier called the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
Terror has actually come a full circle for Pakistan. It may blame its “perennial enemy” India or friend-turned-foe Taliban in Afghanistan for violence taking place on its soil, but it is Pakistan which sowed the seeds of terror.
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