Editorial
Terrorism and Indo-Pak standoff
Fight the scourge jointly
ONE cannot but note with concern the renewal of acrimony between the two nuclear neighbours in the wake of the Mumbai massacre. From materials appearing in the media so far, the terrorists were from Pakistan, having, allegedly, been patronized and trained by radical elements in that country.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of an Islamic militant group accused of having links to last month's Mumbai attacks have been put under house arrest. Pakistan has also closed offices of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, after it was blacklisted by the UN.
These actions of Pakistan, apparently, have not been enough to assuage the feeling of India. Even if one were to accept that the terrorists that perpetrated the bloody November massacre were non-state actors, nothing can detract from the fact that Pakistani nationals have been involved in the attack, and that its territory might have been used as a launching pad for terrorists attack on a neighbour.
It was, however, reassuring to hear the Indian political leaders' eschewal of war as a solution, although the opposition BJP has not been so forthcoming in discounting military action as a possible option. And this is the cause for concern for the people of South Asia who are only too aware of the serious consequences of an Indo-Pak conflagration. And this is what reinforces our oft repeated exhortations that the phenomenon cannot be addressed by any one country alone, that there must be a cooperative effort if we want to see the end of terrorism, in South Asia and indeed the world.
Pakistan, perhaps more than any other country in the region, cannot be oblivious of the deleterious consequences it has had to suffer since the cessation of anti-Soviet operation in Afghanistan in 1988. And perhaps nobody feels the urgency to put an end to extremism and terrorism more than the people of Pakistan.
It cannot be lost on the countries of South Asia that almost all of them have been victims of terrorism, although in varying degrees and intensity. And although there may not be organic links between the indigenous terrorist groups of the region and international terrorists, one cannot rule out their capacity to set up intra-regional networking. This is what calls for the South Asian countries to come together by, first, removing the deficit of trust that exist; and second, by formulating strategies to combat the phenomenon jointly.
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