Shekhar Gupta: Pakistan has pulled the trigger on itself

Pakistan has taken too much of a chance with Pulwama - with the wrong government in India, and at the wrong time

Stephen P Cohen, the noted American scholar on South Asia, has a genius description for Pakistani strategic thought. Pakistan, he says, negotiates with the world by holding the gun to its own head: Give me what I want, or I will blow my brains out. You then handle the mess. Has Pakistan pulled that trigger in Pulwama?

First, get any notion that this was a purely indigenous act of terror out of the way. The suicide terrorist was a radicalised Indian Kashmiri. But count the reasons why his couldn’t be an entirely Indian planned and executed operation:

• The Jaish-e-Mohammed has