Pathankot attack case requires an early closure
More than three weeks after the Pathankot attack, it is heartening to see that the terror assault on the Indian Air Force base has not become yet another statistic in the India-Pakistan peace narrative. Instead, authorities here have been able to keep up the momentum, which is resonating on the world platform and, more importantly, eliciting an active response from Pakistan. In an interview published on Sunday by the Press Trust of India, US President Barack Obama urged Pakistan to take “decisive action” against terror groups operating on its territory so as to prove it is “serious” about “de-legitimising, disrupting and dismantling” these outfits. Mr Obama also said that the Pathankot attack was yet “another example of the inexcusable terrorism that India has endured for too long”. This statement may not seem like a big deal today, but those who have followed the trajectory of Washington DC's India-Pakistan policy, know how far it has come from the days of total American blindness to Pakistani perfidy. On Sunday, French President François Hollande also came out in India's support, saying that the country was “fully justified” in asking Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the Pathankot attack to justice. Two assertions are implicit in his statement: First, individuals from Pakistan have a hand in the attack; and second, individuals from Pakistan had previously also been involved in terror attacks in India but have not been held accountable and, therefore, this time it better be different. The question is: Will itIJ
For any real difference to be made, Pakistan has to carry out large-scale societal and systemic reforms, which can’t happen overnight. Still, it is important to keep an eye out for signals of change. In this regard, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's statement that Pakistan is following up on the fresh leads received from India, is noteworthy. As Mr Sharif himself says, his Government could have “hidden” or “forgotten it”, but it has instead acknowledged receipt and assured investigation. This is a positive sign, and must be viewed against the backdrop of Pakistan's generally cooperative response to Pathankot. In the aftermath of the attack, it did not dismiss India's charges instead, it at least made an effort to seem forthright in probing Indian claims of Pakistani complicity, including the positive optics over the ‘detention' of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, the Pathankot mastermind. Much of this has to be do with rising domestic sentiment against Islamist terrorism which has claimed hundreds of Pakistani lives — the 2014 Peshawar school attack shocked the national conscience while the Bacha Khan University attack last week raised questions about the efficacy of the well-funded and much-pampered military. So much so that the Pakistan Army spokesman had to tell the media that, “One institution alone cannot eliminate this scourge (of terrorism)”, and that all of society will have to make an effort.