Lakhvi’s capture and the weakness of Pakistan

A few words about this blog, first. It is just my way of timepassing, and to beat boredom, i will put my thoughts on various happenings around the world in this space; hopefully i will daily update with interesting news stuff and my take on them, both serious stuff and otherwise. It will also contain posts on music, movies and cricket – my main passions.

I could not be starting a new blog on 9th december 2008 and not mention anything about the terror attacks a couple of weeks ago – it would seem just plain ignorant. The latest development in the past fortnight or so of quickly unfolding events that began with ten 20-somethings massacring 200-odd innocent people and policemen, is that the alleged mastermind behind these attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi alias Chachu, a key member of the top brass of LeT, has been arrested by the Pakistani Army.

Personally, I see this as a very late and weak response from Pakistan to the continued demands of India and the US, along with the rest of the world, to see some action against the obvious perpetrators of the heinous attack. LeT’s name has prominently figured in all the reports preceding and following the attacks, beginning with the intelligence reports from Russian, American and Indian intelligence agencies. The US, particularly, was not particularly keen on India eliciting a military response as ‘revenge’, and put pressure on the Pakistani officials to attack, imposing a 48-hour deadline to see some action.

The Pakistan government first seemed to have responded properly to India, with reports saying that the ISI Chief would come to India, for being investigated rather than investigating stuff, it seemed. The very next day, Zardari did a U-turn after politicians within his country termed the move as weak, saying his comments had been misinterpreted and that he had never meant to send the ISI Chief to India. The Pakistani officials started asking for evidence the Indians had against them. Heck, we were accusing you of having bred the frigging terrorists and egging them on to attack India, having turned a blind eye to happenings under your very nose, and you were asking for evidence. Where on earth is evidence provided to the accused? That too, when we had already known that Pakistan was always a breeding ground for terrorists, and LeT-like organisations were not thwarted, a fact confirmed by the captured terrorist’s story (Incidentally, Ajmal Amir Kasab, the captured terrorist’s name means ‘Butcher’)?

After India good as threatened to carry out ’surgical’ air strikes to eliminate the terrorist camps and pressure to act mounted greater than before, Pakistan’s army cracked down on one terrorist camp, one among the countless, and arrested eight people, one of whom is Lakhvi. Can you believe it?? They know exactly where each on of these camps are located, Condoleezza Rice arrived in Pakistan with exact co-ordinated of all the known camps, obtained from various intelligence gatehring exercises. And this is all the action they can take?

I cannot even remotely envision the presence of such camps in India, that too sponsored by the government. It has been established that the training of the fidayeen group which attacked Mumbai was done, among others, by Pakistani ex-army men. The Pakistan Army failed to stop the merchant ship carrying the terrorists, though it had an idea of what was happening. I am not for war, I do not want India to emulate the US and create an Iraq-like situation; it could mean only woes for our country, already struggling to deal with the economic crisis.

We can only hope for Pakistan to take proper action against Lakhvi and his cronies, or atleast hand him over to India (near impossible, they are refusing to hand over Dawood Ibrahim till date, this guy lives a life of luxury in Karachi). One thing I’m confident of, though. The Indian army/air force/navy is more than capable of eliminating these terrorists groups in Pakistan, if given a chance, but here again a thousand complications stand in the way. Ah, if it was only as simple as the video games we play…