🚀 go-pugleaf

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It seems like the plane hijacking drama, that is as much scripted as the
Indian "victory" in Kargil was, is beginning to backfire on Mr. Vajpai.
If anybody with even a few working brain cells analyzes the whole
situation, it becomes fairly obvious that there are a lot of suspicious
areas in this whole story:

(1) The fact that the plane asked for permission to land in Lucknow
first, and was denied permission - what was the rationale behind it ?

(2) The plane then lands in Amritsar, after being refused to land in
Lahore, but then is let go after more than an hour of stay in Amritsar
without any action taken - what was the rationale for that ?

(3) The plane then force lands in Lahore, even without landing lights,
which were turned off to deter the plane to land in Lahore. The Indian
govt. asks Pakistan not to let the plane go - what did Indian govt. want
to accomplish by keeping the plane in Pakistan, if it suspected Pakistan
was behind the hijacking ?

(4) Plane then lands in Dubai, but Indian govt. does not take any action
at all while the plane was in Dubai, although India has very good
relations with UAE. It does not even ask the UAE govt. to not let the
plane take off - what was the rationale behind it ?

(5) The plane then lands in Afghanistan, controlled by Taliban, which
India calls terrorists and outlaws. Indian govt. then all of a sudden
requests Taliban to not let the plane take off from Afghan soil - What
was the reason behind it? Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last places
on Earth that India should pick to negotiate with the hijackers, if they
suspect they are behind the hijacking !

(6) The hijackers randomly picked one person from the 186 people on the
plane and killed him - what are the odds that this person is coming back
from his honeymoon with his new bride sitting next to him in the plane?
- this sound too much like a bad and cheesy Indian movie !

(7) Even before Indians have any contact with the hijackers, the Indian
officials started claiming that the hijackers were Pakistanis, although
the flight manifest which was already published by Indian airline did
not show any Pakistani on board. How did they know that the hijackers
were Pakistanis, unless they orchestrated the whole drama themselves?

(8) Indian claimed that those hijackers disembarked from the PIA flight.
Nepali foreign minister categorically denied that Indian claim.

(9) Indian showed those hijackers using the name of Qazi - PIA's flight
reservation database records have no such records of any Qazi traveling
to Nepal from Pakistan. The passenger list for the PIA flight is
published and is a matter of public record with every passenger
accounted for - what ever happened to all those Qazi's ?

(10) Even the Indian airlines officials denied any such story (check
Indian newspapers for the story)

(11) India took four days just to get the negotiating team setup and
arrive in Afghanistan. If it is not trying to get the political mileage
than what is it ?

The fact is that India is loosing face in Kashmir very fast. The blunder
of exploding nuclear device by Mr. Vajpai has changed the military
balance of sub-continent in Pakistan's favor. The conventional military
advantage that India enjoyed for almost half the century and which it
used to contain Pakistan to limit her support for Kashmiris Mujahideen
has evaporated in just one evening when Pakistan exploded her nuclear
devices and tested her medium range missiles. Kashmiri people are
determined to pay the price for freedom and independence and there is
nothing India can do to stop them, and it has tried everything in her
arsenal. Kashmiri Mujahideen have raised the stakes, and they are now
striking at the very heart of Indian defense establishment. Indian
military is just not ready to take that kind of losses. There is nothing
you can do if millions of people decide to die for the cause of freedom.
The price of keeping the Kashmir is becoming too high for India - in
men, in material, and in morale. There is an increased realization in
Indian army leadership that if this continues, Indian army will
disintegrate, just like Russian army, beyond repair.

Indian leadership know that Kargil was just the beginning - there will
be hundreds of Kargils in future. This is also evident from Pervez
Musharraf's latest Kashmir policy statement (check the Pakistani
newspapers). It is a clear signal to Mujahideen that Pakistan is, and
will remain committed to Kashmir cause - no matter what happens.

The India leadership, instead of taking the realistic approach and
negotiating with the Kashmiri leadership, is trying to tie the Kashmiri
freedom movement with international terrorism, and are attempting to get
US engaged to bail India's ass again, as it did in Kargil's situation.
It is their last ditch pathetic attempt to label Kashmiri Mujahideen as
terrorists, and hence getting the US to put pressure on Pakistan to
distance herself from Kashmiri Mujahideen, and thus isolating
Mujahideen.

This whole drama about the plane hijack would have been really funny if
it was not so Machiavellian and if it did not involve human lives and
suffering of innocent men, women and children. Mr. Vajpai put thousands
of Indian troops in harms way in Kargil and won the election at the cost
of over a thousand dead Indian soldiers, which belong to the poor class
of Indian population. Now he is trying to play the same game again, this
time at the cost of 160 innocent men, women, and children. The problem
with playing dangerous games is that you have a lot of control to start
these games, but you don't have much control when things go wrong. What
happens if in this game playing, the hijackers try to harm any other
"newly wed" and Taliban, as they have warned already, storm the plane,
and the so called hijackers panic and the innocent passengers end up
getting caught in the cross fire ?

I am sure there are a lot of intelligent people in India, who truly care
about the country and its people. Isn't it time they stand up and tell
Mr. Vajpai that his Kashmir policy is not working and instead of playing
games with the lives of Indian people for cheap political gains, like
this hijack drama, he should really take a serious look into the problem
and try to come up with some workable solution. The Kashmiris are not
simply going to fade away - just because India labels them as
terrorists, they have a legitimate claim to their own destiny, and
Indian leadership has to be cognizant to this fact. Playing stupid games
like this hijacking drama only undermines India's credibility in the
eyes of the world.

Asad Faizi