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Diplomatic talks not composite dialogue: India to Pak

NEW DELHI: A week ahead of the Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries' meeting, India on Wednesday said these parleys should not be "mistaken" for resumption of the composite dialogue as these were "exploratory" talks.

Asserting that the composite dialogue was "suspended", foreign minister S M Krishna said, "Let the nation not be under mistaken inference that composite dialogue is being renewed... The issue that we raised remained to be addressed by Pakistan with a degree of seriousness."

The Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet on February 25 in New Delhi with the government here maintaining that the focus of the talks will be terrorism.

"These are exploratory talks. All that I am saying is that we are going to concentrate on terror which is emanating from Pakistan and the terror activities and terror infrastructure which is there which is yet to be dismantled.

"So our concern, our core concern is going to be terror," Krishna told TV channels.

On Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed and other jehadi leaders freely addressing rallies against India, Krishna said, "It is the way the Pakistan functions. The government perhaps is not capable of restraining these jehadis from continuing with their vituperative statements against India, showing their hostility openly against India."

The minister also emphasised the need to have talks, saying, "... in order to carry forward the core issue as far as India is concerned about terror and terror driven activities emanating from Pakistan, we thought that it is necessary to engage Pakistan in this very critical area of terror."

Fawning over Pak military, US undermines New Delhi talks

WASHINGTON: India may be wasting its time and energy engaging Pakistan’s civilian set-up in the upcoming talks on February 25, going by the way Washington is primarily dealing with the country’s military and intelligence leadership in Rawalpindi and leaving Islamabad’s democratically-elected government in the lurch over sensitive parleys on terrorism.

US recognition of Pakistan’s military as the real power behind the civilian façade has been evident for some time, with American interlocutors, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spending more time with the army brass in Rawalpindi than with the civilian leadership in Islamabad. But it has become glaringly evident this past week when Islamabad was left largely clueless about a CIA-ISI move to engage the Taliban in a move dressed up as the ''capture'' of Taliban No.2, Mullah Birather, in a joint operation.

While Washington was agog with the story of Birather’s ''capture'' and its consequences for Taliban and the US war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s civilian leadership was caught flatfooted by the developments. The country’s interior minister Rehman Malik revealed the government’s ignorance when he insisted there had been no such operation, even as analysts in Washington were taking stock of the development.

''If the New York Times gives information, it is not a divine truth, it can be wrong. We have joint intelligence sharing and no joint investigation, nor joint raids,'' Malik told reporters about the story first reported by the US paper. ''We are a sovereign state and hence will not allow anybody to come and do any operation. And we will not allow that. So this (report) is propaganda,'' he added.

But US officials, while declining to go into details of the alleged ''capture'' citing ''sensitive intelligence matters,'' appeared pleased with the breakthrough they hope will lead to a convenient exit from Afghanistan. Birather’s ''capture'' was credited by some to Pakistan’s army chief Pervez Ashraf Kiyani’s desire to ensure a key role of his country in the any attempt to mediate with the Taliban.

While details of how and why Birather was ''captured'' in Karachi are still murky, regional experts are already suggesting that the story is just a cover for Pakistan facilitating US contacts with the Taliban or interposing itself in US-Taliban engagement. Pakistani intelligence agencies have known his whereabouts for a long time, according to Taliban expert Ahmed Rashid.

Others are suggesting that the military-ISI combine has ''sacrificed'' Birather to the Americans to win Washington’s trust and secure for itself a role in Afghanistan. ''I think their realization of what was happening within their own country and the threat that it posed also played a big part in changing their actions,'' White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said cryptically, indicating the Pakistanis had brought in Birather to reflect a change in policy.

Still others believe US agencies had cornered Birather in Karachi and the joint operation story is just a cover-up to save Pakistan from embarrassment, while some are of the view that the US and/or Pakistan have engaged Birather for a long time and the capture story was drummed up after news of the secret parlays leaked.

No matter which explanation is correct, it shows Pakistan's civilian dispensation in poor light. In fact, locked in a confrontation with the country’s judiciary, the civilian quartet of President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and interior minister Malik have ceded foreign policy to the country’s pugnacious military. This raises the question as to how seriously India should take the upcoming foreign secretary level talks on February 25, an engagement that is credited to Washington’s persuasive hand.

While the Islamabad quartet has largely acted as stooges for Rawalpindi brass, which cracks the whip whenever the four step out of line, US recognition of the military’s primacy appears to have undermined not just Pakistan’s civilian government, but also this engagement with New Delhi. During her last visit to the country, Hillary Clinton spent three hours with General Kayani, for more than any of her engagements with the civilian leadership. The attention did not go unnoticed. Other US interlocutors have also invariably called on Kiyani.

Meanwhile, Birather’s presence in Karachi has also focused attention on the gradual dispersal of extremist elements from the region’s badlands, now under the scrutiny of drones and other US ''eyes in the sky,'' to Pakistan’s urban centers, home to the India-centric jihadi crowd. Last week, the much-wanted extremist Hakimullah Mehsud was reported to have died in Multan in Southern Punjab, where he was reportedly brought for treatment for injuries suffered in a drone attack. ISI elements, possibly renegades, are thought to facilitate such movements into urban centers as US pressure on the border regions make it unsafe for terrorists. Pakistan’s civilian government appears to have little control over all this and Washington keeping Islamabad in the dark over its dealing with the Army-ISI isn’t helping.

West Bengal govt admits it was warned of Naxal attack

KOLKATA: The West Bengal government on Wednesday admitted it had some intelligence warnings that Maoists were "assembling" in the area around Shilda police camp which was attacked in the biggest offensive by Naxals in the state.

The admission by the government came a day after an outraged Centre slammed the Left Front government expressing dismay at the "unprofessional, incompetent, untrained and inadequate" response of the state police force to the Maoist attack on Monday evening.

24 jawans of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) were killed in the deadliest-ever strike by Naxals on their camp at Shilda in West Midnapore district.

The state government also ordered an inquiry into the incident and said "action" would be taken against senior officers if they were found wanting.

"It is not a clear case of intelligence failure. There was intelligence report that the Maoists were assembling in the area, though there was no specific information that they may attack the EFR camp," West Bengal Home secretary Ardhendu Sen told reporters after a high level meeting which reviewed the situation in the wake of the attack.

Asked why no step was taken when the government had in its possession the intelligence report, Sen said the report had come to its hand at 2 PM only, a bare three hours before the attack and it had taken time for the information to percolate down to the lower level.

Refuting the charges by the Centre that the EFR did not have proper training to combat the Maoists, he said, "It is not correct. They are a highly motivated, disciplined and well-trained force."

Heart-rending scenes were witnessed when bodies of all the 24 EFR jawans were handed over to their relatives this morning at Salua camp of the para-military forces near Jhargram for last rites.

'84 riots case: Sajjan facing imminent arrest

New Delhi: Giving no relief, a Delhi Court on Wednesday issued non-bailable warrant against Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases opening the possibility of his arrest by CBI ahead of anticipatory bail plea to be heard on Thursday in the High Court.

Taking exception to his non-appearance before the court after the Delhi High Court refused to grant him relief, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma said that he was ‘duty-bound’ to appear before him.

“The accused was called to appear before the court but he choses to challenge before superior court and rightly do but he could not get any relief. He was duty bound to honour the court's order," the ACMM said.

“Position as it is that there is neither any state nor the accused has been able to keep any interim protection from the superior court. Mere pendency of the bail application in the absence of any specific order from the superior court could not ipso-facto constitute a valid ground for granting exemption," the court said.

CBI's special prosecutor and senior advocate R S Cheema opposed the application of Kumar's counsel for his client's exemption from personal appearance in the court.

He submitted that allowing such a plea would be tantamount to granting relief to the accused, which, for the time being, has not been allowed by the High Court. Scores of Sikhs staged a demonstration outside the Karkardooma court in the afternoon and demanded capital punishment against Kumar.

Earlier in the day, the High Court deferred till Thursday hearing on the anticipatory bail plea of Kumar, 64, in the case. Kumar, a former MP from outer Delhi, has approached the High Court against trial court's order, which had on February 15 refused to grant him anticipatory bail.