Pak must also dismantle jehadi machinery

Some violence by (Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri) militants inside the state may continue for some time especially as long the separatists feel encouraged by Pakistan’s repeated promises of political, diplomatic and moral support to ‘‘liberation’’ struggle.

It also needs to be remembered that with the nature of our society, geography, demography, open and porous borders, infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan can continue for long. The jehadi terrorists who attacked the Lok Sabha on December 13 did not necessarily come across the LoC.

But the present understanding, as and when it gets translated into verification measures, would also provide Pakistan with the instrument of deniability of its role in cross border terrorism. This also means the international pressure that has built up in recent months would start to defuse.

This is not sufficient reason to reject the monitoring proposals; these are useful in the overall campaign of counter-terrorism.

But it is necessary to look ahead since the residual terrorism would then be projected by Pakistan as an indigenous struggle while Islamabad continues to provide political diplomatic support to it. We could then be back to the early 1990s scenario?

It is necessary to emphasise that infiltration is only one component of the cross-border terrorism. Our goal must remain the complete winding down of the jehadi machine and infrastructure including the training camps, financial system, madrassas etc.

US war against Taliban and Al Qaeda has added hundreds of jehadi fighters into Pakistani territory. US pressure on them could force them to sneak into India as much as the pressure in Afghanistan resulted in their diffusion into Pakistan.

We need to tell Mr. Rumsfeld when he comes here that both the US and India have a common interest in ensuring that the jehadi machine in Pakistan is dismantled at the earliest. And that should be the priority.

At this point it is not necessary to go into details of our options except to say that there should be no hurry in de-escalation of military deployment till there is proof of durable measures to roll back terrorism of which infiltration is only one dimension.