Authorities in Pakistani have carried out raids at different places following attack on the Pathankot air base, leading to some arrests. Raids have been carried out in Gujranwala, Jhelum and Bahawalpur districts. The arrests have been made after India handed over to Pakistan government the alleged proof of the involvement of the Jaish-e-Mohammad including call records from Bahawalpur made by the attackers to their alleged handlers in the neighbouring country.
The dossier also included the alleged locations and addresses from where the calls were made. Sharif in his call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also assured him of his support in the investigation to uncover how the Pathankot assault was conceived and executed. And PM Modi had sought “firm and immediate action. And before that US Secretary of State John Kerry in his call to Sharif had extended full support to him to find out the truth in the Pathankot terror incident”. Sharif has already ordered a probe into the leads provided by India. Sharif also directed National Security Adviser Nasser Khan Janjua to remain in touch with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval in a bid to keep renewed dialogue on track.
The arrests have come at a time when the foreign secretary level talks between the two countries are scheduled to be held on January 15 and the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz has said that the talks will go ahead. New Delhi, on the other hand, has also not broken off the engagement. But there is no denying the fact that the talks are precariously poised. The question is whether the arrests will be enough to get India to talk. More so, when Pathankot, come as it did immediately in the wake of the Modis dramatic stopover in Lahore, raises some complex questions about the background of the actors involved in the attack. Did they autonomously carry out the attack? If so, what was their overriding interest in sabotaging the dialogue? Or was there some institutional involvement as alleged by New Delhi? And if so, does it mean, Pakistan Army is not on board the dialogue? If that is so, why is it so? And more important question is what is the point of dialogue when the most important actor in Pakistan’s power scheme is not happy with the renewed engagement. Unless this puzzle is resolved, the dialogue will only proceed in fits and starts, following its 68 year long predictable pattern.
Pathankot attack for all its familiarity has left many a security expert as also the common man equally confounded. For it has unhinged the premises on which the current Indo-Pak thaw seemed to have been founded: an engagement not only between the political leadership of the two countries but also between their security establishments. The talks between National Security Advisors Ajit Doval and Nasser Khan Janjua in Bangkok early in December was expected to have ensured that Pakistan army was part of the renewed bid at normalization of bilateral ties. But Pathankot has turned this hitherto resilient received wisdom too on Indo-Pak relations on its head. The challenge between the two countries is to remove these contradictions and establish a dialogue based on trust.
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