Slipshod Pulwama Investigation: Points to Ponder

by Abbas Adil

On February 14 2019, an explosive-laden vehicle rammed through India’s central reserve police force convoy near Awantipora on the Srinagar-Jammu Highway. Forty CRPF personnel were killed. Without investigation, India blamed Jaish-e-Mohammad, Jaish-e-Mohammad’s Adil Ahmed Dar and Pakistan for the incident. Pulwama investigation

Recent media reports reflect US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), nicknamed Fidelity, Bravery Integrity, assisted India in corroborating the latter’s knee-jerk reaction. The FBI itself is in crisis in the US. Not only the Democratic Hillary Clinton, but also President Trump blames it for dabbling in politics.

The Time, dated May 14 2018, reported: ‘Democrats have questioned the integrity of the bureau as well, with both [Hillary] Clinton and her aides claiming [James]Comey and the FBI helped tip the election to Trump…President Trump has continually attacked the integrity of the institution and its leaders, alleging not just incompetence but bad faith in the commission of justice.’

Pulwama investigation: Questionable FBI-cum-NIA ‘airtight charge sheet’
Why did India have to bank on the FBI when it already possessed all communications from Pakistan? For instance, it intercepted the whole talk between military dictator Yahya Khan and his coterie during the East Pakistan/Bangladesh crisis. India intercepted Musharraf’s conversation with his generals while he was flying back from China to Pakistan.

Immediately after the Pulwama incident, India slated Pakistan for the suicide bombing. The allegation was made even before forensic-lab and National Investigation Agency teams visited the site of the attack at Lethpora, some 30 kilometres from Srinagar on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway. The February 15, 2019 edition of the Indian Express speculated ‘High-grade RDX explosive, weighing about 80 kilograms, was used in the suicide attack.’

Indian reporters estimated 100-150 kg of the explosive was used. Investigating agencies have also taken tower dumps of the attack area to filter out suspicious calls, those made in around the same time as the attack (Hindustan Times dated February 16, 2019).

Suspicious movement on the Srinagar – Jammu Highway

The CRPF’s Standing Operating Procedure required movement of up to 100 persons in a convoy. The CRPF had been moving such convoys, comprising more than 2,500 personnel each, on the Srinagar-Jammu highway. In the past fortnight, two such convoys had moved from Jammu to Srinagar.

The latest was on February 4, with a convoy of 91 vehicles and 2,871 personnel’. Why could the convoy not spot the lonely suicide vehicle trailing behind? How did the terrorists know that the convoy movement was delayed by two days? How did they remain undetected while loading the vehicle with explosives the whole day?

Not only the WhatsApp but also the landlines have never been accessible even in Hindu-majority Jammu (occupied Kashmir). Then how come `The FBI has told the NIA about the WhatsApp group operated by a member of the terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad who was in contact with the people who carried out the attack of Pulwama.

According to the FBI, a man called Mohammed Hussain was operating the WhatsApp group, a resident of Pakistan’s Muzaffarabad. But the number was however registered under the name of Jameela from Budgam’ (Thanks to FBI, India now knows who the handlers of Pulwama attack were reporting to reported by India News Network.)

Unavailability of 4G in IIOJK
India has ‘annexed’ the disputed state and announced that situation has become normal. Even some European parliamentarians had a boat ride in Lake Dal to enjoy serenity of the Valley. EU Lab report however confirmed that the visit was RAW sponsored through a planted business person.

Yet, the 4G internet has not yet been restored.

While students across India are taking online classes amid the nationwide corona virus lockdown, the demand for restoration of 4G internet grows for several students who are now forced to take classes on WhatsApp. Nearly 2,200 schools are unable to hold classes and the future of 27 lakh students is at stake.

Read More: While Pulwama shook India, PM Modi was busy filming epic adventure

Let alone attending these classes, students are not able to download these apps as the maximum speed is 260 or 270 kbps. Students complain, “We are not able to understand what the teacher teaches us because of the weak connection and the poor quality of the video and the video buffers.”

“Even on WhatsApp, we are facing difficulties because it takes a lot of time to download simple 2-3 minute audio clips. One of my teachers started writing the answer for our queries and when he wrote about it for half an hour, the last text he wrote was that ‘my thumbs are aching like anything’.”

The government may have restored mobile and internet services in Jammu & Kashmir but popular messaging app WhatsApp will still not work there. According to the white listed sites released by the government, JioChat, a messaging app of Reliance Jio, will be the only such platform which will function in the state.

India openly abetted terrorism by mukti bahini (freedom fighters) in East Pakistan, (now Bangladesh). Indira Gandhi called up Sam Manekshaw to attack East Pakistan (viral interview). Bangladesh was a sovereign part of Pakistan unlike disputed Jammu and Kashmir. Why did the world remain a silent spectator to India’s state-sponsored terrorism in East Pakistan?

Pakistan never acknowledged its hands in blasts in the disputed state. But, India made no bones about stoking insurgency in East Pakistan. Why the world does not draw India’s attention to its role in East Pakistan.

Some Indian diplomats and RAW’s cover officers have made startling revelations in their books about involvement in insurgencies or terrorism in neighbouring countries. For instance, RK Yadav, and B. Raman (The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down Memory Lane) make no bones about India’s involvement in Bangladesh’s insurgency. They admitted that India’s then prime minister Indira Gandhi, parliament, RAW and armed forces acted in tandem to dismember Pakistan.

Indian parliament passed resolution on March 31, 1971 to support insurgency. Indira Gandhi had then confided with Kao that in case Mujib was prevented to rule Pakistan, she would liberate East Pakistan from the clutches of Military junta.

Kao, through one R&AW agent, got hijacked a plane Fokker Friendship Ganga of Indian Airlines from Srinagar to Lahore. India’s security czar Doval publicly claims that he acted as a spy under a pseudonym in Pakistan for 11 years.

Roedad Khan, in his book ;Pakistan: A Dream gone Sour’ (page 70) comments that Mujeeb documents India’s complicity with insurgents in East Pakistan. He minced no words in portraying Mujeeb as a `terrorist’.

He writes that the Agartala Conspiracy Case was withdrawn, ‘not because the prosecution case against Mujeeb was weak, but because over a million people were out on the streets of Dhaka, several government offices and the houses of ministers including Kawaka Shahabuddin’s house-were burnt. Ayub had no choice but to withdraw the case’.

Why does the world take no notice of India’s machinations to foment insurgency in Balochistan, a sovereign part of Pakistan? Through its proxies like Naila Baloch, India sponsored offensive posters of `Free Balochistan’on taxi cabs and buses in Switzerland and Britain. USA has recently outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army. Pulwama investigation

However, earlier, in 2012, a handful of Republican had moved a pro-separatist bill in US Congress. It demanded `the right to self-determination’. Diplomat Bharath Raj Muthu Kumar’s involvement in anti-Pakistan/taliban activities as “well known.”

Pushtun Tahafuzz Movement backed by India Pulwama investigation
Pushtun Tahafuzz Movement is apparently being backed up by India also. In their over-ebullient speeches, PTM’s leaders openly scold Pakistan’s National Security institutions.

For instance, Manzoor Pashteen, in his interview (Herald, May 2018, p.48), berates Pak army operations and extols drone strikes. He says, ‘The army did not eliminate even a single Taliban leader. All the 87 Taliban commanders killed in the last 18 years were eliminated in drone strikes’.

Kalbushan Jadhav was an Indian-navy officer, attached to the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). His mission was to covertly carry out espionage and terrorism in Pakistan. India’s prestigious Frontline reportage (Praveen Swami, February 16, 2018, India’s secret war) surmised the possibility that Jadhav still served with the Indian Navy. Gazette of India Files bore no record of Jadhav’s retirement.

Inference: Hobnobbing with the US, India portrays the freedom movement in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir as terrorism. The US classified Latin American terrorists as freedom fighters. Not long ago the taliban were freedom fighters against the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Pulwama investigation thus has tell-tale signs of being slipshod.

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