Rehman Malik
“HAFIZ SAEED CANNOT be arrested because India wants Pakistan to arrest him or the US wants so. He can only be arrested if we are provided with evidence against him. At the moment there is no concrete evidence against him so we can’t act against him”.
“The US bounty came as a surprise. The US has announced a bounty of millions of dollars to arrest Hafiz Saeed and ( his deputy) Abdul Rehman Makki without solid evidences against them..
“We cannot allow the US, India or any other country to violate international law by attacking Pakistan’s sovereignty. We will act against terrorists because we are against terrorism but we will act if we have evidence.”
“President Zardari’s visit is private and we should not expect big political decisions. The meeting ( between President Zardari and PM Singh) is a positive step”, said the Interior Minister.
Even though not much is expected from the India visit of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari considering that he is on a “personal visit’’ and the one- on- one that he would be having with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is being dubbed as a “routine courtesy meeting’’ the hawkish elements in Pakistan have already raised the pitch against India particularly on the recent issue of United States announcing a bounty on Hafiz Saeed, the mercurial chief Jamaat- udDawa.
A deeper analysis and the past track record of India- Pakistan relations reveals that the diplomatic initiatives between the two countries have never ever led to the desired results whether socio- political, economic or on any other front. But this does not mean that we should not keep Pakistan engaged in a dialogue since a
break in talks will also be taken advantage of by the powerful hawkish elements within the Pakistani establishment. The reason why traditionally India- Pakistan relations have not been able to make much headway is because virtually the entire governance machinery in Pakistan is in the grip of the Jehadi forces. Whether it’s the Army, the notorious Inter Services Intelligence ( ISI), the powerful bureaucracy and even a section of the political leadership is dominated by the Jehadi factors. It is now confirmed that there has been a complete Talibanisation of the Pakistani governance apparatus as hardcore Taliban elements have infiltrated them. Else, would the Pakistani establishment, whether it’s the Army or the intelligence agencies, be oblivious to Osama Bin Laden’s presence in Abbotabad?
What is also interesting is that the very existence of an influential section of the Army, ISI, bureaucracy and the political class is primarily because of their hate India stand. The minute they dilute their stated position their own existence will come into danger. So before proceeding with P a k i s t a n what one clearly needs to understand is that this section of P a k i s t a n Government, i n c l u d i n g Army, ISI and the bureaucracy will never allow normalisation of rela-