Lahore (Web Desk) – It took Indian leaders and hyper nationalists on social media a total of 3 seconds to conclude that Pakistan and ISI were somehow behind the recent terror attacks in India.
In a suspected terror attack on Monday gunmen fired indiscriminately in Punjab’s Dinanagar town in the frontier district of Gurdaspur, leaving five dead, including police officials. Dinanagar town is close to the Jammu and Kashmir border. Instead of investigating the attack, or being hindered by anything such as proofs and evidences, Indian leaders and far-right nationalists on social media were quick to point the blame to Pakistan.
Indian Minister of State Jitendra Singh was quick to say “ISI is likely behind the Gurdaspur attack”, basing his claims on nothing but thin air and inherent Indian right wing bias against Pakistan.
Jumping into the orgy of irresponsible finger-pointing Indian media also did no hold any misdirected punches.
“Sources said that intelligence inputs on July 24 had warned that 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba (Let) terrorists headed by commander Maqbool Khan are trying to infiltrate from Dudhiniyal, Jammu to carry out attacks in India on August 15 or before with the help of Pakistan Rangers and that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is coordinating the efforts.” Wrote The Hindu in their online coverage of the news.
This is not the first time India has blamed Pakistan without any evidence or proof. Everytime there is an incident in India, Pakistan becomes an easy scapegoat. There are literally dozens of separatists movements in India, from Khalistan to Kashmir and Maoist Naxalites, however Indian far-right does not let any facts get in the way of blaming Pakistan.
Indian social media users were as responsible as the mainstream Indian media commenting about the attack. “4 civilians and 2 policemen dead so far. Could be many more. Several suicide bombers most likely Muslims from Pakistan entered Punjab region via Kashmir border. Before they reached Punjab, they hijacked a bus and killed several passengers. Also placed bombs on railway tracks for maximum casualty. They are here to die and take as many as they can with them. Real snake Pakistan next door have been feeding these animals for years to strike India,” Wrote one Indian user, DrLonghorn, on social media site Reddit.
India and Pakistan have a history of blaming each other for terrorism in each others countries. Last year in December when terrorists attacked Army Public School in Peshawar killing 150 school children, Pakistan had also blamed India for aiding terrorism in Pakistan, financing it and training TTP terrorists. US Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel is also on the record stating that India “for some time has been responsible for financing terror on that [Afghanistan] side of the border.”
Pakistan has lost 60,000 of its citizens to terrorism since 2001 and has incurred a loss of $60-80 billion to infrastructure. This remains one of the highest causality rates against terrorism in the world.
