Harassing the diplomats is also a kind of surgical strike!

By Sohail Parwaz

Since yesterday, Indians have started creating panic at LOC in Kashmir followed by harassing the Pakistani diplomatic staff based at Delhi. The panic is in the shape of ceasefire violations, where at least at eight different places the Indian forces did the artillery shelling and pounded the peaceful side of Azad Kashmir. The real joke started in the morning when the Indian army’s DGMO announced on media that a surgical strike was carried out in the late hours of the night and the terrorists’ camps were destroyed. The Indian opposition leadership strongly criticised their government and army’s claim and demanded the proofs. This was another humiliation which the Indians bagged while desperately trying to go for a ‘face saving’.

On the other hand the Pakistani High Commissioner in India received a couple of threat bearing anonymous phone calls and was asked to leave Pakistan. Those who have read my novel “The Cornered Rogue”, will confirm that I have scripted this scenario in the chapter nineteen of my book, though slightly in a different way. The Indians were making tall claims since long and were threatening Pakistan of severe consequences for the latter’s so-called support to the terrorists. They made a blunder when they committed publicly to go for Cold Start but when couldn’t find assurances about the war to remain restricted then bragged to carry out surgical strikes which unfortunately again fizzled out due to lack of courage. On the other side there was immense pressure from the extremist right wing Hindu elements on their government to ‘Punish Pakistan’. Eventually the stage has come where the Indian government and the army have found themselves on the wrong footing.

The following excerpts from my novel like previous one will confirm my analysis of the event, carried out four years back.

“It was second weekend of the month and Gulsher Mehsood was returning from a dinner hosted by Russian embassy on their national day at Hotel Taj Palace of New Delhi. It was early hour of the night; he along with his chauffer was driving on Jesus and Mary Marg. They were just opposite to Maitreyi College when he felt that they were being chased by another car. Although it wasn’t a new thing, because harassing of each other’s staffers is a routine phenomenon in both the countries, yet here in India a constant threat by the radical right wing Hindu organisations was a continuous alert for Pakistanis. His sixth sense warned him of something not very pleasant to happen any moment. This part of the city from where they were passing would usually be less busy at that time. They were almost near the Diplomatic area and he could see the Qatar embassy just on his right near the T junction made by the lateral road Chandragupta Marg, thus he asked the driver to speed up. The driver after taking the left turn took an immediate right turn as Gulsher told him to take Kawame Krumah Marg to pass through Russian staff quarters and the Italian embassy. The moment they took Nyaya Marg from where the Pakistan High Commission was almost three minutes drive away, suddenly a group of about six people carrying steel rods and batons appeared out of nowhere, before Gulsher or his driver could sense the danger they started smashing his staff car. One of them smashed the window, opened the door and dragged Gulsher out who was neither a weak physique nor a coward so obviously he showed strong resistance. Seeing that, two other carrying clubs rushed towards scuffling Gulsher to help their partner. The First Secretary knew that occasion demanded from him to do away with diplomatic decency. His tribal warrior instinct overpowered his friendly side. He realised that he must snatch an iron rod from one of them if he really had to survive so he looked for the weakest of them and managed to snatch one from him. By now four of them converged upon Gulsher, he had a good taste of beating but the moment he got hold of a rod he found himself dominating those four. He focused on their knees and legs and knocked the hell out of them, while this bout was going on; few yards away two of them were giving a brutal beating to his driver. In few minutes the assailants realised that the victim was stronger, energetic and daring, not only giving them a good fight back but had injured a couple of them badly. Probably one of them had a knee fracture as well. Suddenly one of them yelled, ‘Bhaago (run)’. They gave support to their injured friend and rushed towards the dark where Gulsher could see a Maruti Gypsy jeep parked. Instead of chasing them he rushed towards his fainted driver who was badly coughing, perhaps they gave him some rough blows in the ribs. Few cars stopped to witness the scene, Gulsher wanted to avoid that. He put his injured driver on the backseat and quickly drove off to the High Commission. His wife and daughters were quite upset and scared to see him with bruises on his face. He narrated them the whole account and affectionately kissed his wife. The matter was so important that he had to disturb his High Commissioner whom he thought would have reached after attending the same Reception. How could media miss such an important scoop?  Most of the private channels reported it as breaking news; soon it was carried by the people across the border and elsewhere in the world. In about forty eight hours, after the Indian air raid at Muridke this was second major row between India and Pakistan.”