Respond carefully to Pak

As a former senior officer in the Cabinet Secretariat, with rich experience in analysing the behaviour of Pakistani terrorists, has opined recently, there is little doubt that the Pakistani military — as opposed to independent terrorist groups — was involved directly in the January 8 killing of two Indian jawans along the Line of Control and, more importantly, the mutilation of their bodies.

The officer, now retired, has said that following the incident, the Pakistan Army “has mounted a disinformation campaign to deny its involvement in the incident and to allege a diversionary attempt by the Indian Army to divert attention from some recent domestic developments in India, such as the students’ protest over a gang-rape incident”.

Internal threats to Pak stability

If the Pakistan military (as opposed to the Pakistani Government) was involved directly in the incident, it must have had a purpose in staging it. What was that objective? Was it to revive interest once again in the “India sector” which, in recent times, appears to have been pushed to the sidelines of the evolving security situation in Pakistan, with the threat posed by the Taliban topping the list?

Was it to underscore the importance of the “India front” in the scheme of things outlined by a “new doctrine” developed by the Pakistan military? Reports quoting Pakistan security analysts said that the change in doctrine was a “paradigm shift”. Hitherto, India had always occupied the number one slot in the Pakistan military’s conventional doctrine with weapons and preparations being always directed against India. But, for the first time, Islamabad “had admitted that the real threat was emanating internally”.

Or, was it the Army Chief, General A.P. Kayani’s way of hitting back at those who had begun criticising the military following the Pakistan Supreme Court’s ruling in the Asghar Khan case featuring ISI funding of politicians, the Public Accounts Committee’s investigations involving three Generals, among others, and the National Accountability Bureau’s probe into another scam involving three other Generals?

Kayani, reports late last year said, was under pressure “from his constituency in the cantonments and barracks” to hit back at the “unrelenting and unfair campaign” against the men in khaki and set the record straight that the military was not to be played around with. In both the scenarios given above, the scale of the Indian reaction is an important input for success, which New Delhi is probably aware of.

A third possibility is based on the premise that the Pakistan Army is faction-ridden, and that those who do not quite see eye to eye with the present chief — who, it can be assumed, was very much behind the “new military doctrine” — engineered the Mendhar-sector brutality to focus attention once more on the running and debilitating rivalry with India. The key fact determining the validity of this supposition is whether General Kayani had advance knowledge of the perpetration of the January 8 event, and if he did whether he allowed its implementation or was unable to stop it.

Effective response to provocation

Whatever the interpretation or the strength of the denial, the Pakistan Army’s involvement in the mutilation of the bodies of the two jawans killed on the LoC is a fact. New Delhi cannot allow this challenge to pass by. The Indian Army Chief, General Bikram Singh, did well to reassure the nation as well as the armed forces itself on Monday that such provocations would not be allowed to pass without a carefully calibrated but effective response. However, care must also be taken to keep in mind the fact that the Pakistan military establishment wants the India-front to keep boiling, which, among other things, would allow it to continue calling the shots on the domestic front.

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