The Times Of India

Kasab: Punishing a pup for the master

05 May 2010

Tarun Vijay

Punishing Kasab is like punishing a burglar's pup. The real culprit is Pakistan — the terrorist state that creates, trains and sends Kasabs into our homes to cause mayhem and anarchy. Kasab of course must meet exemplary death, but Pakistan too must be punished. The irony is, we prepare biryani for Pakistani state actors who are playing a game that helps the terrorists. Even a Pakistan-obsessed Indian media feels shy of playing up the role of Pakistan in anti-India terrorist activities because it has taken upon itself a task to talk peace while Indians get killed. Nowhere, not even on the so-called fair and objective media channels, did I see deep analyses and debates on the Pakistani hand in massacring Indian citizens. The victims’ family members were interviewed as if Kasab was a one-man phenomenon and the story began and ended with him.

Talking for Saeed’s and Lakhvi’s extradition and then expressing full faith in Islamabad’s intentions through Gilani means nothing. Rather it makes Pakistan talk cheap and take our claims lightly. After Kasab, India must make sure, on its own, that no one from Pakistan enters our territory with bad intentions and no one in Pakistan is able to get training or raise funds for killing Indians. It needs a credible sincerity and a ruthless will which goes beyond party lines and sham, secular vote-bank considerations. An enemy is an enemy is an enemy. His religion shouldn't make any difference to the law enforcement agencies.

To understand how not to handle Pakistan, look at Washington, which foolishly fattens Pakistan with dollars and arrests Pakistanis in New York for a mayhem that almost happened. Think of the following nine points to take up and respond.

1. Stifle Pakistan with economic sanctions till it agrees to do something concrete to stop its bad babies getting arms and funds on its soil.

2. Start a worldwide diplomatic offensive accompanied with pictures of Kashmir massacres and blasts all over India with good, credible speakers from India representing films, media, and other streams of public life to show the real face of Pakistan and its involvement.

3. Make the American people understand what Pakistan means to us and the US, and establish truthfully Islamabad as the most dangerous threat to world peace and stability. Americans will understand better than the foggy-headed desk officers Obama has employed. Once people rise in protest, White House will have to think twice, especially the Hillary types before they cosy with Rawalpindi Khakis and ignore Indian concerns.

4. Encircle Pakistan diplomatically to shame it for its continued support to terror groups active on the Indian front and its open abetment to violence and separatism in Kashmir, which has resulted in almost nil industrialization, trickling tourist traffic and an ethnic cleansing of Hindus, unparalleled in world history.

5. Put a resolution in the UN to demand UN control on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, which is the gravest threat to us and also to the western world, as no one knows when a part of it would fall into the hands of the Osama lads making them happiest to use it in London or Rome or Washington.

6. Change the Indian laws to be more draconian and have a separate judicial system dealing with anti-national activities. I was happy to see a US senator’s proposal to strip terrorists of their citizenship. "I think it's time for us to look at whether we want to amend that law to apply it to American citizens who choose to become affiliated with foreign terrorists organizations, whether or not they should also be deprived automatically of their citizenship and therefore be deprived of rights that come with that citizenship when they are apprehended and charged with a terrorist act," Senator Joe Lieberman told Fox News in an interview. Let’s do it here even if the US mulls over it endlessly under Obama-Hillary’s Rawalpindi obsession. Those who are found involved in activities against India must not get the privileges and the protection of Indian law either.

7. Refurbish and get a completely new set-up for intelligence agencies and train police forces for anti-terror actions taking up as top priority. The US police did a wonderful job in not only locating the devastating vehicle just in time but also nabbing the Pakistani culprit just seconds before he was flying to Dubai and had the man he travelled with in Karachi arrested from a mosque. Can we do something like this here?

8. Take more help from Israel in strengthening the anti-terror network and intelligence.

9. Rejuvenate the National Cadet Corps compulsorily in all schools giving training in arms to all students from an early age. They all know and read about how terrorism has affected our daily lives. Let them get the right inputs for defeating it.

Nations and societies that are angry when assaulted and show pain and anguish get solutions. Those who don’t care about their hurt never get cared for by others.