The Pakistan hand in India’s terror?

BY SEVANTI NINAN, with inputs from SHUBHA SINGH| IN Books | 29/07/2008

Indo Pak monitoring—A Hoot-Panos series

Through much of last year when there was continuing turmoil in Pakistan, Indo-Pak animosity remained on the back burner and found little reflection in the media. With a resurgence of terrorism targeting India there has been some resurrecting of the ISI as a bogey but overall the responses in the media in Indian and Pakistan to the recent attacks are more muted than in earlier years. There are also frequent references to the governments of India and Pakistan not wanting to derail the peace process. There is an implicit recognition that where terrorism in the region is concerned both countries are victims. The day the the sucide bombing of the Indian  embassy in Afghanistan took place, there were also bomb blasts in Karachi which got precedence in the Pakistani media. 

In this monitoring exercise we look at the reporting both in the case of  the Kabul bombing of the Indian embassy, and in the subsequent terror attacks on Bangalore and Ahmedabad in the Indian media, and compare it with the Pakistani media view.

Editorials in Dawn and The News are relatively restrained  on the Afghan government accusations of "an intelligence agency in the region being responsible for the Kabul blasts, but Indian newspapers, the monitoring shows, take their cue from government briefings, in this instance a particularly harsh one by the National Security Advisor, M K Narayanan.

The suicide bomb attack in Kabul occurred on July 7th.  Initial reports were quick to name Pak involvement, and  the  Afghanistan Minister¿s comment regarding involvement of an active intelligence agency in the region without naming the ISI, was made on July 9.These tended to immediately blame Pakistan¿s ISI and the Taliban. First, the basis for the accusations was the Afghan Interior Minister¿s statement quoted above, thereafter they were influenced by the interviews given  by the Indian NSA.  But then this is also because India was the victim, it is Indian and Afghan lives that were lost.

Pak-backed Taliban

On the day after the blast occurred the Times of India had a front page news analysis by Indrani Bagchi which was headlined – ¿Pak-backed Taliban prime suspect¿. The report said: "Pakistan has a strong motive to target Indian interests in Afghanistan. In fact, there is almost unanimity that it was ISI¿s Taliban groups who were behind Monday¿s attack. It quoted the Afghan Interior Minister saying that the attack was carried out ¿in coordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region." The newspaper¿s editorial said that ¿Islamist militants have effective rear bases in Pakistan¿s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan¿. (July 8, Times of India.)

When terror incidents happen both newspapers and TV in India turn to the same security analysts, B Raman being the most sought after among these. His comments frequently queer the pitch for the line the media takes. The Hindustan Times page 10, which was entirely devoted to reports pertaining to the attack, carried an article by Raman with the heading – Was attack part of a Pakistan deal with Taliban? "Pakistan has a strong motive to target Indian nationals and interests in Afghanistan through surrogate Taliban."  Amit Barua wrote that it was India¿s profile that was bothering the extremists in Afghanistan while the paper¿s editorial asked whether India¿s Afghanistan strategy was too timid.

On July 9 CNN-IBN carried a telephonic interview with the Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in which the minister denied any Pakistani involvement. He said that Pakistani government was for peace with India and he had visited New Delhi recently to take forward the peace process. However, as the visual faded away, the CNN-IBN anchor turned to the audience and said: "And this was the Pakistani Foreign Minister¿s official stand" implying that the statement was less than truthful.

The Asian Age correspondent wrote: "The visit of CBI director Vijay Shanker to Pakistan was cancelled Monday amid rising tension over the role of Pakistan¿s ISI in last week¿s suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, which claimed four Indian lives. National Security Advisor MK Narayanan had said on Saturday that India had ¿pretty good evidence¿ that the ISI was involved in the attack." (July 15, 2008)

On an inside page report on sending more ITBP men to Afghanistan, the correspondent added – "Notably, both the Afghan and Indian government have accused Taliban and its mentor, Pakistan¿s ISI, of being behind the attack."

On the foreign page it carried a PTI report from Islamabad refuting the Indian charge. "It was unfair for India to blame Pakistan without solid information," Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said, adding that such baseless allegations would not affect Pakistan-India relations. The attack was a bid to destablise Indo-Pakistan relations, Mr Mukhtar said.

NSA¿s briefing 

Statements made by the Indian national security advisor queered the pitch for Indian reporters and analysts. Mr Narayanan¿s comments were not restrained. On July 12 he gave interviews to two English news channels. In a television interview (CNN_IBN) "We apprehend intensification of attacks. He said there could be ¿three or four¿ attacks on Indian installations." To NDTV, the NSA said: "The ISI is playing evil. The ISI needs to be destroyed."

On the 13^th of July his comments got full play in the newspapers. The Indian Express headline said,  ¿Pak behind embassy attack in Kabul: NSA¿.  And the story said, "We are fairly sure about Pakistan¿s involvement," Narayanan said, confirming President Karzai¿s comment about Pakistani involvement. His statement comes in the wake of intelligence reports indicating that Pakistan-based outfits were planning to target Indian installations in Afghanistan.

On its Nation page, the Times of India  said that India on Sunday confirmed that Pakistan¿s infamous ISI had a definite role in the Kabul bomb attack. ¿In a comment that perhaps reflected the sentiments in the government, Narayanan was also quoted as saying that such acts of terror need retaliation. "I think we need to pay back in the same coin. We are quite clear in our mind," he said. Later in the report, it also quoted the NSA as saying, "In some way, we haven¿t arrived at the decision that we should go for fight-fight so let talk-talk continue for the moment." The TNN report further added that India had mounted a strongly worded attack on Pakistan¿s peace deals with the Taliban at the UN Security Council. Slamming the peace deals the India¿s ambassador at the UN said that mixed signals were going out through "bargains for a temporary local peace while the rest of us contend with the consequences of such a deal."

The Hindustan Times carried a five column headline ¿ISI behind Kabul blast: Narayanan¿ with the strapline ¿NSA says govt has proof of Pakistani intelligence agency¿s involvement in suicide attack on India mission¿. The report by Nagendra Sharma quoted a PTI despatch based on Narayanan¿s television interviews together with an illustration of the NSA carrying the caption, ¿We have no doubt that the ISI is behind this… the people of the country deserve to know the facts.¿ 

A few days later Praveen Swami in an Op Ed article in The Hindu quoted NSA Narayanan: "Infuriated by mounting evidence that Pakistan¿s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate organised the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Narayanan proposed a solution – "I think we need to pay back in the same coin." Talk-talk is better than fight-fight, but it hadn¿t worked so far, he added.  Swami wrote that no Indian official had ever used language that even approached that deployed by the NSA but others had made a similar case. Indian politicians need to debate Mr Narayanan¿s suggestions seriously, whether or not they see reason to eventually endorse them. So do Pakistanis. If nothing else, the NSA¿s comments show just how deep frustration with the ISI¿s informal war runs in New Delhi. Pakistan has long feared a nightmarish future where a hostile India dams its water resources in J&K and throws its weight behind irredentist forces. Each terror bombing against Indians, paradoxically is bringing that nightmare one step closer.

 Pak media on ISI

While the Indian press debated the role of ISI in the India-related blasts, the Pakistan press debated the move to put the ISI under the Interior Ministry. The  News wrote in an editorial,

The key is for the ISI and also the IB to be made answerable to parliament, and that their roles be restricted to within the ambit of the Constitution and focused on gathering information and intelligence on those involved in terrorism — and not to harass on innocent citizens or a government¿s political opponents. The misuse of agencies to spy on politicians must end but it should also not be handed over to unelected politicians to use it for their own political ends. The ISI in particular is seen by many as a state within the state, pursuing its own agenda. This perception needs to be corrected. While there are questions over whether the Interior Ministry control can cut it down to size, the effort should be to keep the country¿s most notorious agency on a tight leash, under existing civilian control. How it works out in practice will depend on the competence and collective wisdom of our ruling political class. (July 27, 2008)

The primary concern in the Pakistani press is about the ISI running amuck within the country. However The News which belongs to the Jang group eschewed the routine patriotic line on an earlier occasion, namely when the Kabul blasts occurred. At that time while reporting the statement of the Afghan President and Interior Minister that  ¿enemies¿ of Afghan-Indian relations were behind the attack, and the interior ministry¿s statement  pointing a finger at ¿intelligence agencies¿ active in the region, it observed that this was not really a good sign since one needs to investigate the causes of such an event before assigning blame or responsibility.

It added that the response from India has so far been more restrained, "but it is hard to believe that similar suspicions are not lurking in New Delhi. Also, regrettably but as expected, a large section of the Indian media has already assumed that Pakistan is behind the attack because of its perceived support to the Taliban."

But the paper¿s sharper point was that while Afghan accusations could be put down to the Kabul government¿s efforts to deflect attention from its own inadequacies, they should not be dismissed by Pakistan.

But the reports appearing in both the local and international media in recent weeks suggest there may well be some kind of nexus between Pakistan¿s intelligence network and militant outfits operating in the country. This is something we ourselves need to explore and assess. A good starting point would be to investigate the attack on the Indian embassy and other recent suicide-bombings in Kabul from our own end, share this information with Kabul and ensure Pakistan cannot be used as a base for militancy.

The bombing in Kabul brings with it the risk of damaging relations between Pakistan and its immediate neighbours to both the East and the West. This is something the country simply cannot afford. Good regional ties are after all essential to a stronger, more stable Pakistan. The fact that the suicide bombing comes at a time when headway is being made is establishing better relations with India also raises the fear that some elements may be attempting to sabotage this process. As such, Islamabad must play whatever part it can in getting to the bottom of these blasts, both so that it is in a position to respond strongly to the now instant accusations that come from Kabul and to ensure its own interests are not damaged at a time when it is attempting to build closer regional bonds, and establish a new spirit of cooperation with India. (The News July 9, 2008.)

The response of Dawn to the same accusations was to tick off  Afghanistan,  but concede that the Indian response had been more measured. "It is instructive to note that New Delhi itself has not yet blamed Islamabad for Monday¿s attack on its embassy, even though India is the aggrieved party and has lost five personnel." The paper reminded the Afghanistan government that,

The Taliban are their common enemy, for the latter are waging war on the two states and targeting not only government personalities and security personnel but also civilians. Because of the presence of the US-led forces in Afghanistan and the kind of situation that exists on both sides of the Durand Line, what is needed is an effort to step up coordination and reduce areas of friction and misunderstanding rather than contribute to tension with wild allegations that play into the Taliban¿s hands. (Dawn, July 10, 2008, "Kabul¿s Indecent Haste.")

On July 11, a former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Rustam Shah Mohmand, sought to explain in Dawn  why the Pakistan government was unlikely to be behind the blast: because it would only be doing itself damage.

If anyone really believes that such an attack will damage India¿s ties with Afghanistan, he is living in a fool¿s paradise. Such incidents help cement relations still further.

For Pakistan the attack would have been an act of double jeopardy. Accusing fingers would be pointed at Islamabad, furthering the trust deficit between Pakistan and Afghanistan. At the same time, it would cast a shadow on the composite dialogue between Islamabad and New Delhi.

Ahmedabad blasts 

In contrast to the reporting at the time of the Kabul blasts, the blame-laying in the reporting on the terror strikes in Bangalore and Ahmedabad in the Indian press has been restricted to naming the Indian organizations taking credit, and not rushing to name the ISI. Editorials across newspapers focused on pointing out that a domestic jihadi network was in operation and an effective response to such a terrorist threat must work at several levels.(Business Standard, July 28). Business and general newspapers alike editorialized on the need for India to get real about security. Mint, The Hindu, Indian Express and Times of India all wrote editorials, only the Business Standard mentioned Pakistan, and dwelt at some length on its role. (All on July 28, 2008)

On the first day of the reporting on the Ahmedabad blasts, the Hindustan in its front page news story said the terror strikes were being seen as efforts to derail the ongoing Indo-Pak peace process. The Pioneer however dwelt said on the same day, July 27, that ceasefire violations across the Line of Control were on the increase, giving figures and locations.

CNN IBN carried a statement from the Pakistan High Commission  saying that Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has strongly condemned the acts of terrorist violence in the Indian cities of Ahmedabad and Bangalore. On the other hand, the same channel had a reporter asserting that the Indian intelligence was pointing to ISI as the perpetrator. And the anchor concluded, "the link to the ISI seems unavoidable." 

Geo TV¿s reporting of the blasts on its website was straight and factual. Till the time of writing, Pakistan¿s English newspapers had not editorialized on the Ahmedabad and Bangalore bombings.

By July 29, with a skirmish on the LOC in which four Pakistani soldiers were killed, the focus had returned substantially on Pakistan. In the Hindu it was the first lead, in the Indian Express and the Hindustan Times a second lead.

Conclusion 

The general tenor of the reporting and editorialising in the Indian and Pakistani  acknowledges that there are actors like the ISI who are probably behind the terror incidents affecting India. Indian papers add the Pakistan army to that list of hostile actors, citing the stepped up ceasefire violations. But there is also an implicit recognition in media writings that continuing the talks between the two countries are important if terror in India is to be tackled.