J K News Today Commentary
Pakistan is playing a double-game on the suspension of Cross-LoC trade between the two sides of Jammu and Kashmir. It is projecting as if the Government of India has suspended it deliberately without any reason, and it is also shrugging itself of all the wrong doings in which it was involved. The terror funding tops the list of its wrong doings.
Its ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson “deplored” what he called “the unilateral Indian decision to suspend Cross-LoC trade.” There is no doubt that it was a unilateral decision by the ministry of home affairs, and it had to be unilateral because the limits of the misuse of the trade were going on unilaterally by Pakistan for past so many years, despite the bilateral calling that the misuse of the trade should be stopped, Pakistan looked the other way round.
Kashmir is suffering from militancy and violence that has ruined the life of the common Kashmiri. It is an established fact that the terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir is being funded, instigated by Pakistan. When Pulwama terror attack took place on February 14, the world sided with India in saying that Pakistan was liable for punishment and India was within rights to go in for defensive measures. The U S government was among the first to say so, and Pakistan was informed about it. The investigations that had been going on in the misuse of the trade for long after the recovery of drugs, explosives and fake currency had established that one of the routes of terror-funding was the Cross-LoC trade. How could such a dangerous evidence be ignored by any country, so Government of India took a decision to suspend the trade.
Pakistan exports terror and terror-funding and then it wanted to be consulted before the MHA took the decision. Pakistan, for ever, has lived in denial. It says that it has nothing to with the terrorism. Pulwama happened on its own, it had no role, still all the links were traced to Pakistan. A nation that has covered itself with denial will never accept that it had violated the sanctity of the trade and misused it for terror purposes. Pakistan is adept in this game.
That’s precisely happened when the foreign ministry spokesman said that “Pakistan rejects the allegations regarding its (trade) misuse.”
If that is so, for argument sake, where from did the narcotics come to this side of Jammu and Kashmir. Isn’t it a fact that the trade has been used for exporting California almonds which are the biggest source of generating money for the terror groups.
Second mischief that Pakistan is playing regards inciting the groups of traders in Pakistan occupied Kashmir to agitate against the suspension of the Cross-LoC trade. The idea is clear that Pakistan wants to demonise India in the eyes of the world that it took away the CBM that was helping the traders on both sides of the LoC. It is patently wrong because the suspension of the trade came after a number of seizures of contraband that had come from across the LoC and Pakistan was given a number of chances to mend its ways. It did not, hence the suspension.
At the same time, does any CBM stand when terror is injected in it. Pakistan should first answer this question and do self-introspection in the light of what Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan told his Iranian counterparts that Pakistani soil was being used for terror activities in Iran. That is true of Afghanistan and India. Terrorism and trade cannot go together.
