November 21, 2024

If proof were ever needed that the government of Pakistan is shameless, it is provided in ample measure by its decision to observe July 19 as a black day and declare the slain Kashmiri terrorist Burhan Wani to be a ‘martyr’.

Pakistan regularly refuses to acknowledge its own citizens (it calls them “non-state actors) when they are caught or killed while indulging terrorist activities in India, refuses to take back their bodies and denies them a proper burial by their families. It is now saying that Burhan Wani was a ‘martyr’. Why does it call Wani a ‘martyr’ and refuses to own up Ajmal Kasab and others?

It is a country that is the number one terrorist hot-spot in the world – training, equipping, supporting and transporting youngsters to carry out terror attacks in India and maybe other places. It is now petitioning the UN to act against India. It is good that most countries at the UN have shown it its place and refused to meddle in India’s internal issue.

Pakistan is adding fuel to the fire that has erupted in Kashmir after Wani’s death. Its leaders are issuing wantonly crass statements and its television channels are airing inflammatory stories to arouse passions against India. In the proxy war that Pakistan is fighting with India, it is in its interests to keep Kashmir on the boil. It has also allowed Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar e Toiba (LeT) to issue blatantly provocative statements. It doesn’t take action against Saeed and LeT despite UN strictures against them.

Pakistan is playing a deadly game of spreading unrest in India with Kashmir as the focal point. India has rightly said that terror is the state policy of Pakistan. It gets billions of dollars from the West, mainly the US, to fight terrorism on its western borders. But most of the money ends up in financing a different breed of terrorists. While these radicals are trained and supported to operate in India, who knows whether they are not sent elsewhere too? The sooner the West realizes that Pakistan is exporting terror on a huge scale the better.