Indo-Pak Relations: Simmering Border Heat

NSA-level talks called off. LoC tensions on the rise. Non-state actors on a rampage. Is Pakistan's military brass emboldened by an upcoming opportunity in Afghanistan?

- Ullekh NP

Mohammad Naveed, the Pakistani national and alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba operative arrested in early August from Udhampur, Jammu & Kashmir, is believed to have spilled the beans about the training he got in camps run by the Pakistan’s military. A senior government official tells Open that the “young man has been talking like a parrot and is therefore a major embarrassment for the Pakistani government”, which has done nothing to stop its powerful army from financing and equipping non-state actors to wage a war on India. “Naveed, or Qasim that he sometimes claims he is, may be small fry in the LeT scheme of things, but since he is not trained to hold back truth the way some hardened terrorists do, India has got specific information about the designs of the Pakistani military along the Indian border and has enough substance to confront any official from that country,” says the official, requesting anonymity. Another Home Ministry official confirms this, adding that “the bulk of evidence against Pakistani inaction in pursuing perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, too, would have been too much to handle [for Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz]”.