Pakistan’s reaction to Indian Internal Affairs Minister Sushilkumar Shinde’s admission that Hindu terrorism was taking place did not make the needed link to the Mumbai massacre, which India tries to blame on Pakistan. The reaction that India should bring Pakistan up to date on the investigations into the Samjhota Express blast was mild, even though M Shinde had spoken of the arrest of some of those accused of the blast in which Pakistani citizens were killed. This was only one of the incidents Mr Shinde mentioned as being perpetrated by men with links to the RSS and whose terrorism was thus fuelled by Hindu extremism. India has been hammering at Pakistan ever since the Mumbai massacre actually occurred in 2008 to hand over its own citizens, and without it presenting evidence. However, it refuses to share with Pakistan the investigation of a blast which occurred before the Mumbai massacre, and though Ajmal Kasab has been hanged for the massacres, trial has not begun of those accused of the Samjotha Express blast.
This manifest unfairness is not new, and is reflected in its attitude towards Kashmir where a Black Day was observed on Saturday, India’s Republic Day. It should be noted that APHC leaders Ali Gilani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq have called on India to end the human rights violation that its occupation of Kashmir presents. The international community has found it convenient to fall in with India’s proclamations of being a democratic secular state devoted to upholding human rights, but it has shown how little attention it pays the international community, in the form of the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir, or its neighbours, like Pakistan. Not only has it refused to talk about outstanding issues, like Kashmir, but it has actually done nothing about the slaughter of its citizens by Hindu terrorists on its territory, as in the Samjhota Express blast.
Instead of making this Indian duplicity well known in foreign capitals, the Pakistan government carries on a dialogue with India that only leads to a furthering of the Indian agenda, the latest example being the grant to India of MFN status. Pakistan should press India to bring to trial those accused of the Samjhota Express blast, so that not just the families of the victims, but the whole county, can attain closure.