B Raman’s Open Letter to Kasuri

B Raman writes a open letter to Kasuri who called for intelligence co-operation between Indian and Pakistani agencies, recounting the history of the attempted Indo-Pak intelligence co-operation from the 1980s onwards calling it a dialogue of the deaf where the Pakistanis repeatedly stonewall and lie through their teeth even in the face of overwhelming evidence.He ends his letter by summarizing as follows.

You would now understand, I hope, why there is not much enthusiasm in India to the idea of a Joint Mechanism for Counter-Terrorism Co-operation. They say once bitten, twice shy. India has been bitten thrice — after the Shimla talks between Indira Gandhi and Z A Bhutto; after the meetings between Verma and Hamid Gul; and after the meeting between A B Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif at Lahore in February 1999.

Mr Foreign Minister, Pakistan has handed over so many terrorism suspects to the US and other countries. Forget about terrorists. Can you recall even a single instance where Pakistan has handed over even a cattle-lifter to India? Whenever India has asked Pakistan to hand over a terrorist or other criminal, Pakistan’s response has been that India has not been able to produce convincing evidence against him. And whenever India has asked Pakistan to hand over a non-Muslim terrorist, Pakistan’s response has been: ‘Yes, we agree you have good evidence against him, but your information that he is in our territory is wrong.’ The handing-over of the Sikh army deserters is the only instance of such action by Pakistan that I can recall. I cannot understand even today why Gul did it. Was he planning to use them to collect military intelligence from India?

All Pakistan has to do to demonstrate its sincerity is to hand over some of the terrorists from India living in Pakistani territory before the first meeting of the Joint Counter-Terrorism Mechanism. It will have a big impact in India and many sceptics will start supporting the mechanism.

India would do well to heed this lesson of history and dump that nonsense called the joint anti-terrorism institutional mechanism. It too is doomed to suffer the same fate as above.

Pakistan Forcelifts Samjhauta Train blast Survivors

Why the hurry to forcibly take away all the injured still recuperating from their wounds? Is it because the Pakis were afraid that some canaries will sing? What is Pakistan hiding from the World?

NEW DELHI: Seven survivors of the Samjhauta Express tragedy were forced on Thursday to leave Safdarjung Hospital on short notice and taken away to a waiting Pakistan Air Force aircraft to be flown back home.

All of them were badly burned and a few of them pleaded that they be allowed to stay back for a few days more for their wounds to heal. Some said they had no one at home to look after them. But the doctors said they were helpless; these were orders from above.

It transpires that Pakistan was adamant to take back their citizens who had survived the blast, no matter what their medical condition. To make matters worse for them, they were rushed out of the sanitised burns unit in the afternoon, but until the time of writing their aircraft had not taken off, ostensibly due to ‘‘technical reasons’’. In other words, they are waiting in the plane without medical attention.

Some of them need it badly. For instance, 9-year-old Shamim was on ventilator when he was almost dragged out of Safdarjung’s ICU along with six others and put on a PAF special aircraft to be airlifted to Lahore. Some of the blast victims cried in vain to be allowed to stay back till they recuperated.

This is even more puzzling considering what Kasuri had said a day earlier in front of the Safdarjung Hospital. But his full account is somehow missing in all of the Media. This is what he said.

“I express my appreciation to the doctors who are attending on the (Pakistani) patients. They are taking really good care of them,”.” We Will be guided by the doctors advice on when we can take them back”.

Kasuri in Front of Safdarjung Hospital(Video Link)

But that last line has been quietly edited out by the media. It is nowhere to be found even though i myself saw it atleast 3 times on different news channels.

I think it is a wise idea to get a TV tuner card and record the videos ourselves so that we can catch the media lies, cover-ups and distortions red handed. Perhaps it is also a good idea to keep an eye on some online articles and see how they are being quietly edited over a period of time when they think that no one is looking and also compare them with the circulated hard copies of their newspapers and magazines.

Gas Pipeline Blown Up by Baloch Rebels

That too in the very area where that accursed pipeline from Iran to India will have to pass through if built.

Quetta, Balochistan: Suspected Baloch militants blew up a gas pipeline near Quetta on Tuesday, cutting supplies to a power plant and several areas, a gas company official said. Gas supplies were cut to four districts near Quetta and a 95 MW city power plant. Supplies might be restored to some areas within 24 hours, Nawaz said. No one was hurt in the early morning blast in the outskirts of Quetta. “They planted explosives under an 18-inch pipeline that blew out a 4-foot piece of the pipe,” said Sheikh Nawaz, general manager of Sui Southern Gas Company.

If that pipeline is built not only will India have sleepless nights worrying about when the Paki goverment will pull the plug on this vital line. One has to also worry about when the Baloch militants will want to use it for some target practice.

Added to that India will have to pay several hundreds of millions of dollars as transit fees to Pakistan. That’s a lot of easy money for Pak to finance its terrorist campaigns against India.

The whole hair brained pipeline deal therefore is a lose-lose bargain all the way and should be scrapped right away, if it has not been already. A very viable alternative to this is to use the sea route since

1) India can then import all the gas it needs from every friggin part of the world including Iran and even Venezuela.

2) The Indian Navy can very much handle anyone who wants to play some mischief along the way.

Samjhauta Train Blasts handiwork of Pak-based militants: India

End of ALL Speculation. It is not the Martians, not the mythical Hindu terrorists and certainly not the flying spaghetti monster but terrorist militant charity “freedom fighter” groups based in the territory of our own “loving neighbour” to the west having nearly 28 years of worldwide experience in doing these kind of things -butchering innocent civilians and then hiding behind a wall of lies and denials.

February 21, 2007- Security agencies probing the Samjhauta Express blasts on Tuesday night said the incident was the handiwork of Pakistan-based militant groups.

Highly-placed sources in Union Home Ministry said they had “vital clues,” which included a telephonic conversation between a caller from Delhi to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The sources declined to give out the identity of the militant groups behind the blasts, but hinted at sleeper cells of Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

These militant groups, the sources said, have adopted a new modus operandi of detonating low-intensity blasts with explosive materials comprising readily available combustibles.

Pak Politicians want Terrorism to Continue in J&K

So much for the “Peace process”. The mainstream Indian media never tires of repeating ad nauseum that the majority of Pakis are peace loving and it is only a “tiny minority” of extremists who are against peace with India. But the reality on the ground looks so very different from their make believe world.

Asserting that any decision on Kashmir must not be made without the approval of Parliament, leaders across Pakistan’s political spectrum have rejected President Pervez Musharraf’s proposals to resolve the vexed issue and asked for continued “jihad” in the state.

A conference on Kashmir, which was attended, among others, by Pakistan Muslim League-N Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq, General Secretary of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Maulana Fazlur Rehman, President of Pakistan People’s Party Makhdoom Amin Fahim and PoK President Raja Zulqarnain, demanded a discussion of the government’s policies on Kashmir in Parliament.

Participants adopted a resolution rejecting the four-point proposals of Musharraf, which include demilitarisation and joint control of the disputed state by India and Pakistan.

They also demanded that the Kashmir policy be discussed in Parliament in 2008 after the next general elections and that jihad should be continued, the Daily Times reported.

Lets face it. In their culture any compromise or treaty is just Hudna- a mere timeout to rearm and reengage from a stronger position.

And the dichotomy is even more revealing. Our peaceniks shout at the top of their voices all the time that it is the Pakistani Army alone that has a selfish interest in keeping the embers of kashmir issue burning and if Pakistan becomes a democracy there will be peace.

Unfortunately the above stand taken jointly by all the political parties of Pakistan pours cold water on that theory. Even if there are free and fair elections tomorrow it will only put the above worthies in power, nothing is going to change from their end.

It is better we Indians see this situation for what it really is rather than let ourselves get carried away by the shenanigans of the “peace” process.

‘Communal Socialist’ PM Welcomes “Enlightened Dictator’s” Proposals on the “Kashmir Issue”

PM Manmohan Singh newly dubbed as the ‘Communal Socialist PM’ has welcomed the ‘Four point proposals’ of the neighbourhood “Enlightened dictator” to “solve” the “Kashmir issue”.

Sunday, December 17, 2006 (New Delhi):

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has welcomed Pakistan President General Musharraf’s four-point offer on resolving the Kashmir dispute.Musharraf made this offer in an exclusive interview with NDTV’s Prannoy Roy.

The PM said that India is ready to discuss all outstanding issues with Pakistan including J&K.

“I give high priority to normalising our relations with Pakistan by solving all outstanding issues between our two countries. That also includes the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. If anytime new ideas come, we welcome them and I would like to say that in the last two and half years we have had very intensive dialogue with Pakistan,” said Singh.

The “Enlightened dictator” had made this offer to Senior Pakistani propogandist Indian Journalist Prannoy Roy during a meeting interview on PTV India NDTV Channel.

Rajeev Srinivasan, a Rediff Columnist on his blog had called this proposal of the “Enlightened dictator” as nothing new but the same old Pakistani negotiating ploy of ‘What we have is ours, what you have is up for talks’.

Yossarin of Offstumped termed the four point proposals as a “nonstarter”.

Musharraf’s Kashmir proposals are a non-starter not because they are unacceptable to India but because they amount to nothing. They are all about media headliners and soundbites while meaning precious little to in concrete terms.

Victory in the 1971 War

On this day, December 16th, 35 years ago the Indian Armed Forces scored a spectacular victory against the Pakistanis. The Pakistani Army in East Pakistan under Lt Gen A.A.K. Niazi Surrendered to Lt Gen J.S. Aurora thus ending the war and leading to the creation of a new country, Bangladesh.

The victory was the result of excellent planning, co-ordination and hard work at all levels of the Armed Forces and for a refreshing change the civilian leadership led by then Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi played a supportive role to the war effort with her brilliant leadership.

But later the Indian diplomacy would return to its bad old ways and simply fritter away all the hard earned gains of our soldiers in the war at the Simla Conference of July 2, 1972.

Rediff.com On the 35th Anniversary of the end of the 1971 War

Also read Bharat-Rakshak’s Articles on the 1971 War

The IAF in the Liberation War

The Indian Navy in the Liberation War

Official 1971 War History

A Soldier Remembers the 1971 War

35 years after the 1971 Indo-Pak war ended with a thumping victory for the Indian Forces. Col(retd) Anil Athale remembers his days as a PoW in that war and his triumphant return home.

Memories of a Prisoner of War

During a war, there are just four possibilities a soldier faces.One, victorious and safe. Two: wounded. Three: killed in action. And four, a Prisoner of War.It was my fate to face the fourth.

The days spent Waiting to return home

As the days passed, a sense of desperation crept in on us.

Our spirits were buoyed when Indira Gandhi’s principal advisor D P Dhar visited Pakistan in early 1972. Then came the historic Simla Agreement of July 2, 1972. But the repatriation of Prisoners of War remained mired in controversies. Bangladesh demanded the handing over of ‘War Criminals’ from among the Pakistanis held in India, and our fate got linked to the ‘high politics’ of the subcontinent being played out at the time.

MEMRI’s New ‘Islamist Websites Monitor’ Project

MEMRI( Middle East Media Research Institute) specialises in the monitoring of the Middle Eastern media ranging from print to television to the Internet. This service has been very vital for the rest of the outside world to understand the volatile Middle East in its own words and images.

MEMRI has now started a new service which monitors the tons of radical islamist websites on the internet. In one of their latest despatches they have included the video of a Jihadi rally held in Muzzaffarnagar, PoK on May 20, 2004 to commemorate the deaths of two of their terrorist brethren killed a fortnight earlier in Jammu and Kashmir.

This rally is addressed by the loudmouth Mohammed Yunus Shah, commander of the ragtag militia called the Hizb-Al-Mujahideen. He seems to have had a peg too much before taking the stage.Just listen to his “pearls of wisdom”.

Yusuf Shah declares that throughout Muslim history, no Muslim problem had ever been solved through negotiations, but only on the battlefield. He says that in negotiations, the Muslims are always swindled, just as the Palestinians were swindled at Camp David and the Afghans were swindled by the Geneva Agreement.

Yusuf Shah goes on to denounce the Pakistani government for befriending the Jews, as well as the Hindus of “imperialist India” which “is not ready, even now, to acknowledge and recognize the existence of [Pakistan].” He says that if it weren’t for Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities and for the resistance of the mujahideen, the war (with India) would have taken place not in Kashmir but in the streets of Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi. He adds that Pakistan, as a prosperous Muslim country with nuclear capabilities, should come to the aid of all oppressed Muslims throughout the world.

Actually i like his newly coined term ‘Indian Imperialists’. I think we should make it a reality since we are being accused of it anyway.

Pakistan is Paranoid about “Indian-Origin” Diplomats

Another shining example of Pakistan’s Paranoia and idiocy.

November 09, 2006 18:32 IST- Irked by the posting of several Indian-origin diplomats by the United States and Britain in their embassies in this country, Pakistan has reportedly asked Washington and London to avoid appointing such officials to “sensitive posts”.

“There is a major concern in the official quarters in Islamabad over the appointment of growing number of diplomats of Indian origin to sensitive positions at the US embassy and to a lesser degree at the British High Commission in Islamabad,” Pakistani officials were quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

It said the officials were not “hesitant” to acknowledge that the issue of posting Indian-origin diplomats has emerged as an “irritant” and “friendly discussions” were underway to resolve it “amicably”.

And ofcourse no Pakistani has ever learnt to discuss anything without the standard “You-too” argument.

When asked for her reaction to the report, Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said she has to “check” whether the issue has been taken up with the countries. India does not permit officials of Pakistani origin to serve in any of the foreign missions in India, where as Pakistan has been accepting officials of Indian origin to serve in foreign missions in Islamabad, she told PTI in Islamabad.

Oh choo schweet of her. .

Lets’ cut the propoganda PR bullshit here. The problem the Pakis have is specifically with diplomats of either Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain or Christian origins. To be posted as a diplomat to Pakistan means that the person has to be a born citizen of that country, not even a naturalised citizen in cases like the USA.

Many of these people are second generation immigrants and have tenous links to India.Clearly, Pakistan is trying to cover its own religious bigotry under the cloak of so called “security concerns” and our ever stoned and doped media simply swallows and regurgitates this shameless bit of propoganda coming out of the Pakis’ ever lying mouth.

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Update- While discussing diplomats. This is a very interesting interview of Vivek Kumar with Arundhati Ghose’s panel during his UPSC efforts. I liked the part where she asks him whether he would follow any order from the Indian Government that he feels is against India’s national interests, Vivek says he probably would have to, but she cuts him short by saying that the one guiding principle that he has to follow is India’s national Interests, nothing else. Period. If you think something is wrong, refuse to carry out the order. The national interest must never be compromised.

This is the same lady who headed the Indian delegation at the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva in 1996 and gave that famous Not Now, Not Ever speech with regard to signing the CTBT. May her tribe increase.