The attack on a temple in the Kashmore area of Sindh Province in Pakistan on July 16 by some eight-nine ‘dacoits’ using rocket launchers, and another report of 30 Hindus, including women and children, held hostage by ‘criminal gangs’ in the same region, are being portrayed as retaliation to Seema Haider, a Pakistani mother of four, who entered India illegally after falling in love with a Hindu boy while playing an online gaming platform. The story has all the makings of an ISI operation with the woman possibly trained as a suicide bomber for a specific mission and the so-called dacoits and criminal gangs the extension of ISI’s proxy boots.
On April 20, five army soldiers were killed and one seriously wounded when Pakistan-sponsored terrorists fired at an army vehicle in the Rajouri sector of J&K. In another incident in the same sector on May 5, five Special Forces personnel were killed. However, India did not exercise periodic political proclamations that the fight will be taken to where the threat originated from. This would have buoyed the ISI to carry on its proxy war on India. Hence, infiltration bids into J&K are continuing, as are incidents of terrorist attacks within J&K.
On July 16, a US-Pakistan Joint Police Training Centre was inaugurated in Nowshera, Pakistan, with US Ambassador to Pakistan Donald Bloom attending the ceremony. The facility gives a foothold to the US in the area. The US is also providing the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police with $3 million worth of armoured vehicles, bulletproof jackets and helmets.
The Pakistan-US-UK ties remain strong. Pakistan’s removal from the FATF’s ‘grey list’ and recent $3 billion IMF loan to Pakistan had an obvious nod from the US. Despite the US forces’ rout from Afghanistan largely because of Pakistani support to the Taliban, the then Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa made an official visit to Washington in 2022 and signed a deal worth $450 million to repair Pakistan’s ageing fleet of F-16 fighter jets; recall the US giving F-16s to Pakistan on the pretext of ‘counter terrorism’.
The UK has been procuring artillery ammunition from Pakistan and supplying the same to Ukraine. Britain hosts dozens of Pakistan Army officers on training courses annually. Pakistan Army officers also receive training from MI5 and MI6 (Britain’s domestic and foreign intelligence services) through courses at the Chicksands Royal Air Force Base, which is an intelligence facility in Bedfordshire. In August 2022, the then Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was the Chief Guest at the passing out parade of the UK’s Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.
In February 2023, Pakistan army chief General Asim Munir made a 5-day visit to the UK. This was followed by British army chief General Patrick Sanders making a 5-day visit to Pakistan commencing May 30 and promising to enhance Britain’s intelligence and military cooperation with Pakistan.
Pakistan allowed the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) to establish an office in Karachi much before the Kartarpur Corridor was opened in November 2019 and the ISI linked up the SFJ with the Chinese intelligence. But the recent activism by pro-Khalistan elements in attacking Indians and Indian missions, targeting Indian diplomats, protests, posters, defacing of temples and the like by the US-led Anglo-Saxon group of the US, Canada, the UK and Australia would have been coordinated by Washington.
The US accorded a red carpet welcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent visit to the US. The joint statement issued by the White House said that the US and India are among the ‘closest partners’ in the world and mentioned ‘warm bonds of family and friendship’. But immediately thereafter, the EU Parliament passed a resolution accusing the Modi Government of polarising the society, human rights violations and killing of Christians in Manipur. Whatever is happening in Manipur is known to all, at least generally, but it still is India’s internal issue which has been conveyed to the US.
Earlier, the EU had been holding discussions and seminars on the Maoists insurgency in India – the purpose obviously to find ways to destabilise India, Now the US- institution ‘International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance’ has issued a report on Manipur. It is no secret that the US wants to destabilise South Asia and ignite an India-China war; the Middle East finally having united against the US-NATO warmongering over the past decades.
But how would the US and EU like if the Indian Parliament (or of any other country) passes a resolution (or undertakes a study) condemning the US and the EU of human rights violations not only in their countries but also across the planet, the storming of Capitol Hill in the US, killings of blacks and Afro-Asians, weaponisation of refugees, keeping alive and optimising Nazi-ism, neo-Nazi European leaders, plus from the US-led Anglo-Saxon Front, prostituting for Washington at the expense respective economies and public? NATO bombing, invading and terrorising multiple countries, use of defoliants, chemical and bio-weapons, funding bio-weapon research in China, developing DNA-based bio-weapons plus neuro-strike weapons, to name a few issues?
The EU and America’s pet poodle Britain have been dancing to the tune of Washington since the end of World War II. A trapped Europe is already suffering America’s warm hugs and stabs in the back and Ukraine stands destroyed with America’s war on Russia. The game of backstabbing India is on. China’s ‘old friend’ Henry Kissinger may have proposed to Xi Jinping that rather than first going for Taiwan (1/16th the size of Ukraine), attacking India could be more beneficial for China at the present juncture.
-The writer is an Indian Army veteran. Views expressed are personal.
