Pakistan identifies ‘non-state actor’

Pakistan’s latest contribution to the world (apart from jihadi groups) is this wonderful little phrase: ‘non-state actor’. It is a fantastic way of copping out of any responsibility and is an indication of the brazenly dismissive attitude towards India’s complaints. No wonder they were dismissive of the ‘Ajmal confession’. And with a tit-for-tat ‘arrest’ of Indian for the Lahore bomb blast, things will only get murkier. Don’t miss the scale of blasts in Lahore – I heard Hamid Gul crow on TV: ‘assuming that Pakistan was involved in 26/11, if 10-20 men case such damage, imagine the carnage Pakistan can create in India’. So the Lahore event is meant to indicative of the ineptness of Indians.

Anyway, don’t be surprised if Pakistan announces that it has identified a ‘key non-state actor’ and says it is Rajnikant. After all he is a Maharashtrian who grew up in Karnataka and is popular in TN, AP and several other states.

India ‘evidently’ in a bind

Media channels are ‘shocked’ that Ajmal Kasab’s letter is not ample proof for Pakistan. What do we expect? A ready acceptance? How naive can we get? It could be easily said that such a ‘confession’ was coerced out of Ajmal. We might as well give them photocopies of all the articles from Indian newspapers as a dossier. Despite all the noise about diplomatic pressure and so on, India has very little real options to prod Pakistan to take some action. The confession being passed off as evidence will not pass muster with both Pakistan and the international community.

Strangely, Interpol says that they were not given any information of the attacks, despite their team meeting our officials. What did they discuss then? Ronald Noble, Interpol’s Secretary General says “The information Interpol has about what happened in Mumbai is the same information that you have – it’s information that was read in journals, that was read on the internet or that was seen on TV.” WTF? What about stuff like DNA testing? or any other hard evidence? What was the purpose of having discussions with them if they were not provided hard facts? This surely be fodder for the Pakistani media who are already rubbishing the ‘confession’ (their quotes).

Talking of media, I happened to watch another ‘exclusive’ from Times NOW (groan). There were dramatic shots of what was purportedly the house in which Masood Azhar lives in Bahawalpur. The report said that the channel visited the city and showed some hazy pictures of a bearded gent being taken in a van, walking down the street etc. All with a big red circle around his face. It could have been anybody. There was nothing in the report that clearly identified Masood Azhar. Yet, there was typcial hysteria about the report. If this is investigative journalism, then my name is Senguttuvan.

Forget the doublespeak of Pakistani officials & ministers for a minute. What real options does India have? War is not an option. Surgical strikes – but where? In PoK? Karachi? Do we know? Even if we do, that will surely escalate into war. Compared to this the entire history of the 9/11 attackers – what they did in the US, for how long, their backgrounds – were all available. And no one disputed that because they were hard facts. According to Wikipedia, ‘the suspects were identified within 72 hours because few made any attempt to disguise their names on flight and credit card records and they were among the few non-U.S. citizens and nearly the only passengers with Arabic names on their flights, enabling the FBI to identify them and in many cases such details as dates of birth, known, and/or possible residences, visa status, and specific identification of the suspected pilots within hours’. Sure, we have a covert operation here. But to expect Pakistan to take a pleading letter from Kasab seriously is a bit too much.

Solution to India’s terror attacks: Ram Gopal Verma

Television channels, dailies and online magazines are pontificating about the root cause of terror attacks in India and are offering unsolicited advice on possible solutions. They are missing the point by a mile and a half. The solution: Ram Gopal Verma. By taking a first hand look at the mayhem unleashed on the Taj, he is perfectly placed to come up with a solution. A little bird tells me that he is now going to remake the old Dev Anand starrer, Paying Guest, albeit tweaked in RGV’s own trademark style. The film will be called ‘Preying Guest’ – it is about a bunch of militants who check into a 5-star hotel only to take hostages and prey on them. Later, the title could run into trouble with the original makers of the movie and would be changed to ‘Marna Zaroori Hai’. Disaster tourism, anyone?

And if the movie is anything like his Aag, it should scare the jehadi’s into submission. There could even be a special promo for jehadis – ‘we dare you to sit through the entire film’. If they fail to do so, they have to give up their jehadi ways. Now, there’s hope.