Daily Times

The July 27 shooting in Gurdaspur, Indian Punjab, which resulted in 10 casualties, three of which were the assailants, has stirred up political tensions in India. Although the bodies have not been identified and the facts of the case are not yet fully known, the Director General (DG) of the Indian Punjab police, Sumedh Singh Saini, has claimed that “the inspection of the bodies shows that the assailants were Muslim”. Even if they were Muslims, it is too early to tell whether they were Indian or Pakistani, but the Indian media and some politicians have already started linking the attack to Pakistan. The Indian Express went so far as to call the attackers a “Lashkar-e-Taiba combat unit”. The possibility that they were radical Islamists, either acting on their own or in affiliation with a Pakistan-based terror group, cannot be ruled out. However, it is too early for India to begin blaming Pakistan, which is a slippery slope that usually leads to a war of words and cross-fire at the border. The Gurdaspur tragedy is even more unfortunate considering India and Pakistan’s prime ministers’ conversation in Ufa, which gave hope that dialogue between the two countries could resume.
Despite the eagerness of some factions in India to blame Pakistan, India’s premier intelligence agency RAW has suggested that this attack might be a revival of the Sikh separatist movement in India. All this premature speculation will escalate tensions within communities in India and between India and Pakistan. Although it is still early days in the investigation, it seems that the war of words has already begun. Addressing the Centre of International Study in Rome during an official visit to Italy this week, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif said, “Our enemies are stoking terror to destabilise our country” while commending operation Zarb-e-Azb and Pakistan’s commitment to fighting militancy. In the light of the Pakistani military and state officials’ recent comments that RAW has been supporting terrorism in Pakistan and Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parikar’s ill-conceived statement that India must fight terror with terror, there is little ambiguity as to which enemies he was talking about. Terrorism is arguably a greater threat to both countries than they are to each other and it is time for India and Pakistan to set aside their differences and recognise who their true enemies are. Terrorists do not respect borders while carrying out their heinous crimes against humanity. In his speech in Rome, General Sharif acknowledged this fact: “Terrorism has attacked our common roots, and being a trans-boundary phenomenon, it needs a global response and support. Only together can we win this war against terrorism.” That is the spirit that must prevail if there is to be peace between India and Pakistan and an efficacious joint tackling of terrorism. *