Defence & Diplomacy: Pathankot Terror Attack & Pak-India Peace Talks
- 8 years ago
On September 6, 1965, close to twilight, the first day of the Indo-Pak War, No. 19 Squadron of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) successfully struck the Indian Air Force (IAF) Station at Pathankot, achieving total surprise and decimating a number of front line IAF fighter aircraft including top of the line Mig-21s.
Fifty years, three months and thirty five days later Pathankot was struck again but this time by terrorists. The difference is that Indian security agencies managed to defend their strategic assets and eliminated all six terrorists albeit at the personal sacrifice of seven members of the defenders including a Lieutenant Colonel.
In stark contrast to the 1965 strike, which was a war mission and the Mumbai Terror attack of November 26, 2008, Pakistan offered condolences and expressed solidarity with India. Mian Nawaz Sharif called his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and tendered support. Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) shared intelligence leads to the perpetrators of the crime to his Pakistani counterpart. Pakistani Prime Minister called his National Security Team comprising the Ministers of Finance, Defence and Interior as well as the NSA, Army Chief and DG ISI into a huddle and took the decision of supporting India into investigating the leads provided. These are unprecedented actions but indicate maturity on both sides of the divide. India linked the Foreign Secretary-level talks to Islamabad’s “prompt and decisive” action in the Pathankot terror attack for which it has provided “actionable intelligence”.
Pakistan formed a committee to probe into the leads, took Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of the defunct Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and eleven operatives into preventive custody and sealed JeM offices.
As news of his arrest broke on local television channels, JeM Chief Maulana Masood Azhar, writing in the JeM mouthpiece “Al Qalam” under his pen name Saidi, warned the Pakistan government about the "dangerous road" it is taking by cracking down against the Jaish.
While the leads provided by India are being diligently investigated, there are a number of loopholes and unanswered questions in the whole gory Pathankot episode, which Indian security agencies must investigate and follow up to get to the bottom of the attack.
In the blog ‘The Pathankot Paradox’ a number of unexplained phenomena have been highlighted. The author questions the tardy response of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took his time not hurrying back from his zero-urgency two-day visit to Karnataka until mid-Sunday, 3 January, where the antiterrorist operation took more than 85 hours to conclude.
Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh, who was promoted as one of two assistant commandants of the 75th Battalion, Punjab Armed Police, PAP Jalandhar Cantt, was carjacked on the very day that he received his new posting order (Thursday, 31 December 2015), was mysteriously left alive.
Participants:
Makhdoom Babar
Fahd Humayun
Host: S. M. Hali
Fifty years, three months and thirty five days later Pathankot was struck again but this time by terrorists. The difference is that Indian security agencies managed to defend their strategic assets and eliminated all six terrorists albeit at the personal sacrifice of seven members of the defenders including a Lieutenant Colonel.
In stark contrast to the 1965 strike, which was a war mission and the Mumbai Terror attack of November 26, 2008, Pakistan offered condolences and expressed solidarity with India. Mian Nawaz Sharif called his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and tendered support. Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) shared intelligence leads to the perpetrators of the crime to his Pakistani counterpart. Pakistani Prime Minister called his National Security Team comprising the Ministers of Finance, Defence and Interior as well as the NSA, Army Chief and DG ISI into a huddle and took the decision of supporting India into investigating the leads provided. These are unprecedented actions but indicate maturity on both sides of the divide. India linked the Foreign Secretary-level talks to Islamabad’s “prompt and decisive” action in the Pathankot terror attack for which it has provided “actionable intelligence”.
Pakistan formed a committee to probe into the leads, took Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of the defunct Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and eleven operatives into preventive custody and sealed JeM offices.
As news of his arrest broke on local television channels, JeM Chief Maulana Masood Azhar, writing in the JeM mouthpiece “Al Qalam” under his pen name Saidi, warned the Pakistan government about the "dangerous road" it is taking by cracking down against the Jaish.
While the leads provided by India are being diligently investigated, there are a number of loopholes and unanswered questions in the whole gory Pathankot episode, which Indian security agencies must investigate and follow up to get to the bottom of the attack.
In the blog ‘The Pathankot Paradox’ a number of unexplained phenomena have been highlighted. The author questions the tardy response of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took his time not hurrying back from his zero-urgency two-day visit to Karnataka until mid-Sunday, 3 January, where the antiterrorist operation took more than 85 hours to conclude.
Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh, who was promoted as one of two assistant commandants of the 75th Battalion, Punjab Armed Police, PAP Jalandhar Cantt, was carjacked on the very day that he received his new posting order (Thursday, 31 December 2015), was mysteriously left alive.
Participants:
Makhdoom Babar
Fahd Humayun
Host: S. M. Hali