The collective schizophrenia which is inherent in the legacy of Partition has played out between India and Pakistan in wars, on the sports field, and across the cultural arena for over 70 years now. With the rise of Wahabi/Salafist panIslamism on that side of the border and an emphatic reassertion of the Indic ethos on this side as a clear differentiator over the past few decades, people-to-people interactions too have been impacted.
It was, therefore, heart-warming to hear of the immediate repatriation of two teenaged girls from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir who had inadvertently crossed over to the Indian side in the Poonch area early on 6 December.
Given tensions on the Line of Control and the heavy deployment of troops by both sides on high alert, the restraint shown by the Indian Army when it detected the crossing deserves commendation. It is a tough call at a time when conflict no longer follows what used to be called civilised norms whether to eliminate on sight any infiltrator, given brainwashed suicide bombers are now embedded in the matrix of war, or to hold fire till identities can be established. Indian troops chose the latter option in this instance.
As a result, Laiba Zabair, 17, and Sana Zabair, 13, from the PoK village of Abbasspur, who had, as teenagers do, run away from home following a domestic tiff and found themselves on the Indian side, were repatriated loaded with gifts at the Chakan Da Bagh crossing where Pakistanis officials received them.
But it is worth thinking about the potential human tragedy if the Indian Army had not taken the call it did. Which is also why it is vital to note that at about the same time as the teenagers were being handed over safely to their family, Delhi Police’s Special Cell was engaged in a gunfight on the streets of the Capital at the culmination of which five armed men with alleged links to banned terror outfits were arrested. The suspicion is that the five suspects ~ three Kashmiris thought to have been radicalised and two pro-Khalistan gunmen from Punjab ~ were taking orders from the Pakistani state’s covert agencies to assassinate prominent leaders from the saffron camp to provoke social-religious tensions.
The aborted operation is seen by Indian intelligence as part of Pakistan’s attempt to resurrect what the media has termed its K2 (Kashmir, Khalistan) plan. Whatever the details of the matter, which is for the legal system to decide, Islamabad’s use of terror as state policy and its desire to foment trouble in India continues apace. There are, therefore, no easy answers here. New Delhi’s only option is to give no quarter and keep the military-diplomatic squeeze on its western neighbour till such time it shows at least the first stirrings of wanting to re-join the civilised world.