Daily Times

Not too long ago, India’s home minister had won hearts all over the country by groundlessly thundering that his government wanted peace but not at the cost of national honour. Today, when Pakistan joins an increasingly long list of countries that are not ready to take blatant attacks on sovereignty in their stride, would honourable Mr Rajnath Singh dare to eat his words? On Thursday, Pakistan’s foreign secretary sat in front of a room full of cameramen and claimed Islamabad had “credible evidence” linking Indian agents to the killing of not just one but two Pakistani nationals last year. That both Muhammad Riaz and Shahid Latif were murdered inside the confines of their own motherland, especially in the vicinity of mosques (generally considered to be places of refuge) adds further insult to injury. Following the pattern previously seen in North America, the rogue network hired assassins in a plot befitting a Bollywood thriller. To borrow words from Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi, A sophisticated and sinister campaign of extraterritorial and extrajudicial killings saw Indian agents “recruited, financed and supported criminals, terrorists and unsuspecting civilians to play defined roles in these assassinations.”

No matter what grounds his administration seems to have built its case on, India cannot go around killing people.

Similar details were revealed by pages upon pages of a chilling indictment handed by a court in New York where Indian agents were accused of directing an attempted assassination plot against Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a prominent Sikh activist. The attempt was foiled by US agents.

Earlier, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau rose to the front, damning New Delhi of murdering another Sikh activist who was comfortably living as a Canadian citizen. Because Pakistan has the passport details of both Indian agents and claims to have unravelled the entire network, no time should be wasted in laying out all the details before the international community.

Indian response cannot be expected to be any different from before. Calling Mr Trudeau’s accusations “absurd,” dismissing the US judiciary with hollow lipservice about carrying out its own investigations, it was bound to raise the “malicious propaganda” flag in its defence. However, blinded by his attempts to show a strong statesman image in the election year, Mr Modi seems to have forgotten that no country can be willing, prepared or in a position to see the loss of innocent civilians just because he feels like going on a killing spree. No matter what grounds his administration seems to have built its case on, India cannot go around killing people. When Mr Latif was murdered last year, Indian media did not waste any time in issuing details about his alleged part in a terror plot in Pathankot in 2016. If this was true, why wasn’t more credible evidence shared with the military and civilian leadership of the country involved? Clearly, there exist ample institutions and operations of the rule-based international order to force any country to pay heed to other’s security concerns. But today, when Pakistan claims that India’s part in this assassination plot can be explained without a shadow of a doubt, would the same media outlets recycle their previous content or hurriedly try to clean out the archive?

The irony is not lost on anyone. A country that continuously tries to raise the innocent card and peddle effective propaganda strategies to smear mud over others’ reputations is fast losing ways to defend its rogue doctrine. This textbook display of how a far-right regime charged with aggressive nationalism blatantly embarks on the roguish path would neither be easy to explain nor sweep under the rug. There would have to be severe consequences involved.

The writer is a freelance columnist.