May 18, 2002	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, May 17: The killing of 34 people in held Kashmir just hours after the arrival of US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca in New Delhi on Tuesday, fits in a telling pattern where such incidents occur around every visit by an important foreign dignitary to India, Pakistan or the United States.

Invariably, the Indian government’s accusing finger is always directed towards Pakistan, just as the outlawed Jaish-i-Mohammad has been charged with the May 14 attack even though another group claimed responsibility.

A litany of such events, dating back to the visit of the then US President, Bill Clinton, to India in March 2000, speaks for itself.

On March 21, 2000, when President Bill Clinton was visiting India, 36 Sikhs were shot dead in Chattisinghpora in Occupied Kashmir by unidentified gunmen reportedly dressed in army uniform. The Indian government blamed Pakistan for the incident but later stonewalled a judicial inquiry into the killing.

On March 25, 2000, Indian forces killed five people in the village of Pathribal, claiming that those killed were “militants” responsible for the Sikh massacre and quickly buried the bodies.

Nine more civilians were killed in Brakpora on April 3, when Indian forces opened fire on a group protesting the massacre at Chattisinghpora and Pathribal. When the bodies of the five alleged militants killed on March 25 at Pathribal were exhumed, they turned out to be local villagers and not militants or Pakistanis.

Last year in July when Christina Rocca was visiting India 15 Yatris, including two police officials, were killed during Amarnath Yatra at Sheeshnag near Srinagar. Again Kashmiri militants were blamed for the killings. However, Indian media reports suggested that the Yatris were killed by the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) personnel.

The attack on the parliament building in Srinagar on Oct 1, 2001, coincided with Jaswant Singh’s visit to Washington.

The bizarre and failed hijacking drama of a Reliance Airlines flight from Bombay to New Delhi took place a day before British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s arrival in New Delhi on Oct 5, 2001.

On October 15, 2001, when the US secretary of state was in Islamabad, the Indian troops resorted to unprovoked heavy shelling of Pakistani positions in various sectors along the LoC. The Indian government argued that it was a “pre-emptive defence” action taken to prevent infiltration from the Pakistani side. However, Brig P.C. Das of the Jammu-based 16 corps, claimed that the army had fired to “teach Pakistan a lesson”. On Oct 16, the US secretary of state was to travel to New Delhi.

On Jan 17, 2002, soon after the arrival of Secretary of State Colin Powell in New Delhi from Islamabad a bomb went off in Kanak Mandi in Jammu.

In the early hours of Jan 22, 2002, security staff outside the US Information Centre in Kolkata was attacked. On that day the FBI Director, Robert Mueller, head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson and the US State Department Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, Ambassador Francis Taylor were in India.