INDIA has reportedly established a special cell at a cost of $500 million to sabotage CPEC. In our ever-ebullience for rapprochement with India, we shrugged off this piece of news about Indian machinations to sabotage the CPEC. We even took Kalbhushan Jhadav’s arrest as an isolated event.

The spate of recent terrorist attacks in Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan indicate that foreign countries are out to undo the CPEC. India is reportedly training 400 Muslims in Afghanistan to CPEC blast bridges on Karakoram Highway. Efforts to create disharmony among some sects in GB is another handiwork of RAW.

In January 2017, GB inspector-general arrested a dozen persons in Yasin valley of Ghizer district along with a cache of arms and ammunition. They confessed to having been paid and trained by RAW to sabotage CPEC. They wanted to attack a Jama’at Khana in Ghizer and other parts to emblazon sectarian rift.

Indian media is abuzz with stories of ‘rebellion’ in GB and ‘an uprising against Pakistan’. The local strike against some federal taxes was projected as against Pakistan. They went as far as ‘revealing’ the presence of Chinese troops in GB.

The Western media also picked holes in the CPEC. They viewed the mega project as a ploy to ‘colonise Pakistan’, ‘to usurp Balochistan’s resources’, and disturb ecology of the region when ‘over 70,000 trucks will pass through this region daily, emitting a large amount of carbon’.

They are concerned over the laying of ‘railway tracks in this mountainous area. They believe ‘Chinese will bring seven million Chinese workers to Pakistan, about 400,000 for work in GB and ‘CPEC-related projects will swallow their lands’.

The government should rebut subversive propaganda, and hold seminars to create awareness in people.

A.J. Malik

Peshawar

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2018