Pakistan's gesture of friendship: Hafiz Saeed walks free!

A slap in the face of India

But Manmohan Singh is unmoved

On Monday, May 24, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh defended his decision to resume bilateral dialogue with Pakistan at the Foreign Secretary and Foreign Minister level. This decision, announced at Thimpu where Manmohan Singh met Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the SAARC Summit, flies in the face of public opinion in India. It proves that Manmohan Singh’s grovelling capitulation at Sharm el-Sheikh, where he agreed to delink Pakistan’s yet-to-be-fulfilled promise to act against anti-India Islamist terrorist groups operating out of territory under Islamabad’s control from the resumption of the ‘composite’ bilateral dialogue which had been suspended after 26/11, was no mistake. He did with the purpose of resuming talks without securing India’s national interest; he did it under American pressure; and, he did it knowing full well that he does not have mandate to do so.
At his May 24 Press conference Manmohan Singh defended his decision to resume dialogue with the Pakistani political-military-jihad alliance by insisting:

a. India cannot but seek peace and better relations with its “largest neighbour” (which is bunkum, not least because Pakistan is not India’s ‘largest’ neighbour);
b. India cannot progress economically unless it has “resolved” all issues with Pakistan (which is not true as India’s growth has been independent of its relations with its rogue, terror-sponsoring neighbour); and,
c. India must reduce the “trust deficit” that stands in the way of better relations with Pakistan (which is hogwash because the ‘trust deficit’ is of Pakistan’s account and it is for Pakistanis to reduce it).

Expectedly, the Left-liberal section of Delhi’s commentariat waxed eloquent while heaping praise on Manmohan Singh for discounting national interest in pursuit of peace with Pakistan. Our self-seeking middleclass, which is obsessed with furthering its own wellbeing at the expense of India’s wellbeing, of course, is unable to fathom the consequences of Manmohan Singh’s disastrous decision. Arun Jaitley did make a valiant attempt to highlight the folly of the Prime Minister’s action, but his other senior colleagues in the party, especially Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj, maintained a strange, inexplicable silence.
On Tuesday, May 25, the Pakistani Supreme Court allowed Hafiz Saeed, the chief terrorist of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba / Jamaat-ud-Dawah and one of the key men who plotted the 26/11 fidayeen attack on Mumbai, to walk free. Apparently, the three-judge bench came to the conclusion that there was no evidence to keep Hafiz Saeed under house arrest – leave alone in jail – for his role in the 26/11 mass murder.
The Pakistani Supreme Court’s decision is in keeping with the Pakistani Government’s repeated insistence that the Government of India has failed to provide any evidence against Hafiz Saeed and his fellow terrorists. Several dossiers with stacks of documents supplied by New Delhi to Islamabad have been glibly labelled as ‘fiction’.
Pakistan’s mocking inaction against the masterminds behind the 26/11 outrage is in sharp contrast to the haste with which it has detained friends, associates and family members of Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani American arrested in New York for planting a car bomb at Times Square. The bomb was defused before it could explode.
Obviously the Americans are pleased. And they couldn’t give a damn about Pakistan sponsoring cross-border terrorism against India. Just as they couldn’t bother with giving Indian agencies access to another Pakistani American, David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani, a member of Chicago’s LeT cell who did the groundwork for the 26/11 attack and other planned terrorist outrages.
It would be in order to presume that Pakistan has impressed upon its benefactor the need to protect Headley/Gilani lest he tell Indian investigators all about the involvement of the Islamabad-Rawalpindi alliance in waging jihad against India. US President Barack Hussein Obama couldn’t but have obliged his favourite criminal regime. That favour has been returned by acting promptly against the alleged allies of Faisal Shahzad.
America is happy. Pakistan is happy. As for India, it better do what B Hussein O instructs Manmohan Singh to do. With an effete Prime Minister, India has no other option but to comply with what America demands, which is really what Pakistan wishes.
Meanwhile, the self-righteous, sanctimonious UN Secretary-General would do well to ponder over the contempt with which Pakistan, with the full backing and support of America, has treated the UN Security Council resolution against JuD and its terrorist leaders.