ALI SUKHANVER

On the evening of 13 January 2017, a regular reader of my write-ups sent me an email expressing his worries on a demonstration outside Pakistan embassy in Kabul. He was of the opinion that the Afghan government is preparing a stage for its new drama of ‘Terrorist- Intrusion’ in Pakistan. I hope my reply to his mail would have calmed him down a lot. I wrote, ‘ Worry not, it is simply a joint venture; Modi’s tongue is dripping out of Ashraf Ghani’s mouth; nothing new, nothing strange; it all has been happening since long.’ Pakistan’s unfortunate companionship with India and Afghanistan is neither the new one nor the desired one since we can never choose our neighbours. It is another very ridiculous contradiction that India calls itself a secular country whereas Afghanistan is the most extremist and most rigid country with reference to acting upon the religious preaching. If Pakistan were not in between these two countries, Afghanistan would really have given a tough time to the secular India. Logically Afghanistan must have been closer to Pakistan but practically it has now simply become a colony of India. The rulers of Afghanistan have sold out the brave people of Afghanistan to the Modi state and now Modi is the master of their fate. Gone are the days when the rulers of Afghanistan were puppet in the hands of US, now their strings are in the hands of Mr. Modi. Though it is the very internal rather personal matter of Afghanistan to whom it gets closer but for the people of Pakistan, the helplessness of Afghan people is not less than a misery. Even thousand Modis and million Ashraf Ghanis can never cut off the relationship between the Afghan and Pakistani people but they can create temporary hurdles and misunderstandings between them; and this they are doing well. Moreover India’s and Afghanistan’s aggression at once increases whenever Pakistan achieves some brilliant success in the field of nuclear technology. The recent hype is also the result of the same ‘heart-burning’.

Let us look back to the recent incident of dragging Pakistan into an old blame game. On 10^th of January, the UAE ambassador to Afghanistan his Excellency Jumma Mohammed Abdullah Al Kaabi was in Kandahar to lay the foundation stone for the UAE-funded Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan orphanage and to sign an agreement with Kardan University for the Emirates to offer scholarships there. At once two explosions took place inside the heavily guarded governor’s compound. These blasts killed at least seven people and wounded 18 others, including the UAE ambassador and governor Homayun Azizi. A number of Emirati diplomats also got serious injuries. According to the media details, the explosives were hidden inside a sofa of the guest house in the Governor House. The same day two large bombings near government offices killed at least 38 people, including civilians and military personnel. Security officials in Kabul said it was the deadliest attack by Taliban insurgents in the capital in months. Earlier in the day, a suicide bomber on foot also struck in the southern province of Helmand, killing at least seven people. In short this icy cold day proved very hot for the people of Afghanistan. Whether the victims are from India, Afghanistan, UAE or Pakistan, killing of innocent human beings could never be appreciated. Pakistan has always felt and expressed deep grief and sorrow over such brutal incidents but more painful is the fact that instead of appreciating Pakistan’s emotions of sympathy and sorrow, the government of Afghanistan started blaming ISI and Pakistan for providing alleged support to the terrorists behind these attacks.

Just after the attacks in Kandahar and Kabul, the provincial police chief of the southern Kandahar province General Abdul Raziq blamed in a statement that ‘notorious Haqqani terrorist network with the support of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) were behind the deadly attack on governor’s compound.’ Speaking during a press conference, Gen. Raziq said the Haqqani network and ISI were working since a long period of time to target the provincial leadership. On the other hand, Taliban militants group denied involvement in the attack and blamed the Afghan officials for having internal disputes and accused them of plotting and carrying out the explosion. Just to make the statement of General Raziq authentic, the NDS in collaboration with the R&AW staged a protest demonstration outside the Pakistan embassy in Kabul on 13^th January. The demonstrators raised slogans against Pakistan Army’s intelligence arm, Inter-Services Intelligence and burnt the effigy of a senior Pakistan Army official. What would the Afghan government get out of such baseless blames and allegations against a country which has been bearing the burden of more than 1.6 million Afghan refugees for more than three decades? It is the ever worst example of ungratefulness.