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India reacted first in outrage and then with balanced criticism following the killing of five soldiers on the India-Pakistan border along the Line of Control, with Members of Parliament asking searching questions about those involved in the attack.
After an initial furore in the two Houses of Parliament in which an agitated Yashwant Sinha (BJP) in the Lok Sabha along with Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav attacked the government for its cowardice in not responding in kind to the perpetrators; and angry slogans of ‘Pakistan Murdabad’in the Rajya Sabha, MPs asked some logical questions from Defence Minister AK Antony who made a statement in the two Houses.
Antony said one non-commissioned officer and five others on the Indian side of Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch sector in Jammu and Kashmir were ambushed early morning on August 6. 'In the ensuing gunfire, five Indian soldiers were martyred and one was injured. The ambush was carried out by approximately 20 heavily armed terrorists, along with persons dressed in Pakistan Army uniforms', the statement said.
It added: 'The number of infiltration attempts have doubled this year in relation to the corresponding period -- 1st January-5th August of 2012. There has also been 57 ceasefire violations this year which is 80 per cent more than the violations last year, during the same corresponding period. The Indian Army successfully eliminated 19 hardcore terrorists in the recent months of July and August along the LoC and in the hinterland in J&K. The vigilant counter-infiltration grid has ensured that 17 infiltration bids were foiled this year'.
'We strongly condemn this incident. Government of India has lodged a strong protest with Government of Pakistan through diplomatic channels', Antony said.
MPs from the opposition were quick to cross question these claims. Why was the government describing the men as terrorists ? How did India know they were 'men dressed in Pakistan Army uniforms and were not from the Pakistan Army itself?' MPs wanted to know.
Privately, MPs also asked , quoting reports on Doordarshan, how as many as 20 foreign soldiers had come 400 m into the Indian side of the border and how they had even managed to work out the escape route. MPs speculated that this could not have been the work of terrorists and was clearly a professional hand at work.
Some MPs both from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha said this was a spillover of Pakistan politics into India. The Pakistan Army had first asked its Afghanistan proxies to strike the Indian Embassy in Jalalabad, warning the civilian Nawaz Sharif government as well as the Indian government not to hold talks; and had now tried to derail talks by creating tension along the border.
The interpretation of MPs was that the Pak Army was trying to dictate the India-Pakistan political agenda – coming up in the form of the Manmohan Singh-Nawaz Sharif meeting in New York next month on the sidelines of the UNGA – through military interventions.
Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid has so far not reacted to the event.
