KARACHI: Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent comments after his overture of peace talks with India amounted to a “strange and significant” statement nothing like anything from his predecessors, former military officers, and senior analysts have said.
Addressing government officials in Lahore on Sunday, PM Khan said that his country will not accept any act of hostility and will respond in kind if it comes to that. “Our wish for peace should not be mistaken as a sign of weakness,” he told bureaucrats of the Punjab government. His statement came a day after the Indian Army Chief Bipin Rawat threatened Islamabad with “retaliation” for allegedly killing a border guard and policemen in Indian-administered Kashmir.
“Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks from his mind,” Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told Arab News.
A day earlier, PM Khan in a tweet said he was disappointed at what he described as “the arrogant and negative response by India” to his call for the resumption of the peace dialogue.
“The statement from PM Khan is a statement from the nation. This specific statement, and all other statements made by Imran Khan, are reflective of the true feelings of his nation,” the information minister added.
The tweet and address in Lahore invited reaction from the other side of the border. Former External Affairs Minister of India Shashi Tharoor said Khan had a “fairly clear level of military backing” and he “could be a wonderful face for peace or an effective voice for hostility, depending on what the army wants of him.”
Former military officers and defense experts in Pakistan, however, do not agree.
Tharoor is an eloquent orator and well-read commentator on regional issues but citing the age-old Indian rhetoric seems quite odd, said the Karachi-based defense analyst Waheed Akhter Bukhari.
“His whole argument relying on the ‘army running the show in Pakistan and civilian leadership being under their watchful eyes’ rhetoric is, in fact, an insult to the capabilities of ‘his longtime friend’ Imran Khan,” he said.
Khan is the first prime minister of Pakistan and among the very few people of his generation to have a Twitter account, and he uses it regularly, said senior analyst Shahzad Chaudhry, adding that what Khan expressed hadn’t come from anywhere else.
“India, in contradiction of the diplomatic norms, used very harsh language by saying that the ‘true face of Imran Khan has been exposed’ in response to his peace overture,” Chaudhry told Arab News. This, Chaudhry said, led the Pakistani premier to tweet the harsh statement but it was still not as harsh as it was interpreted by some in India and Pakistan.
Major General (rtd.) Ejaz Awan, a senior defense analyst, said previous governments were extra-diplomatic toward India but this time “the political and military leadership are on the same page.”
PM Khan’s language toward India ‘strange and significant,’ analysts say
PM Khan’s language toward India ‘strange and significant,’ analysts say
- The current political and military leadership are on the same page, say experts
- Imran Khan has a “fairly clear level of military backing,” says India
Pakistan police arrest 12 suspected militants in operations across Punjab
- CTD says suspects linked to RAW were planning attacks on sensitive sites and worship places
- Raids in Lahore, Faisalabad and Bahawalpur yielded explosives, IEDs, detonators, weapons
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s counterterrorism police said on Monday 12 suspected militants allegedly linked to India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) were arrested in coordinated intelligence-based operations across three cities in Punjab province.
The arrests come as authorities repeatedly accuse external networks, including Indian spy agencies, of backing militants involved in such violence.
The raids were carried out in Lahore, Faisalabad and Bahawalpur, where police said they recovered weapons, explosives, detonators, seven improvised explosive devices (IEDs), safety fuses, mobile phones and cash from the suspects.
A Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) spokesperson said the group was planning attacks on sensitive installations and places of worship.
“The operation was initiated after investigators traced a Facebook ID named Adil, reportedly being operated from India by RAW handlers,” CTD said in a statement.
“The terrorists had been recording videos of sensitive locations and worship places and sending these videos to RAW operatives via WhatsApp ... According to officials, all the detained suspects were receiving financial support from RAW.”
The CTD said cases have been registered against all 12 suspects and further investigation is underway.
Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in militant attacks in recent years, particularly in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan provinces, where security agencies blame groups including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).
