CURIOUSLY, terror incidents in India or Indian-occupied Kashmir have tended to occur at crucial times for Pakistan or India.According to your Indian correspondent Jawed Naqvi’s column (Sept 20), sceptics in India believe that the Uri tragedy where 18 Indian soldiers died “serves Delhi’s agenda and that of the militant groups it accuses of staging such attacks.

Will voters in Punjab swing BJP’s way with the militarist rhetoric?”This chain of events seemingly started in March 2000, when US president Bill Clinton was to reach India for a five-day state visit. A couple of days earlier 36 Sikhs were massacred in a village in Indian-occupied Kashmir for which the blame was immediately put on Kashmiri freedom-fighters and Pakistan (March 22, 2000).

However, the Sikh community worldwide had absolved the Kashmiri Muslims and blamed the Indian establishment. More importantly, a subsequent inquiry by a retired Indian judge had held Indian intelligence agencies responsible. The Americans too had said they had no evidence to blame the Kashmiris or Pakistan. An Indian operative had also been cited as saying that if thousands of Indians required to be killed for India’s greater good, that can be done!

Then there was the attack on Indian parliament in Dec 2001, soon after 9/11, when India was trying hard to get Pakistan declared a ‘terrorist state’ but the US had rebuffed its offer of collaboration in invading Afghanistan.

The raid on the temple in Ayodhya on July 5, 2005, on the eve of Indian prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s trip to Washington when, in addition to a number of agreements on defence and nuclear cooperation, he’d be canvassing for a UN Security Council seat, is another example.

A.G. Chaudhry

Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2016