Calling off Pakistan's bluff

Pakistan can stoop to any level in its fight against India. Stung by the International Court of Justice’s stay on the execution of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav who is languishing in a Pakistani jail, Islamabad may now try to leverage the arrest of a suspected SIMI member Sheikh Nabi Ahmed to score brownie points.

Though Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) is yet to ascertain the identity of Ahmed, there are intense speculations that Nabi alias Taj Ahmed Raees Sheikh could be a member of the banned outfit SIMI. He appears to be the same man from Mumbai’s Jogeshwari whose name had surfaced when the ATS was keeping tabs on a terror module in 2005-2006.

Once India is able to establish the criminal antecedents of this man, it can effortlessly call off Islamabad’s bluff. For a while now, international opinion has been unfavourable for Pakistan. The US, which had once called Islamabad its ally in the war against terror, is showing impatience with Pak-sponsored terror attacks in India.

The Pakistani army, which sponsors and nurtures terror outfits, is a law unto itself and the civilian government is reduced to a puppet. As India gains prominence on the world stage, Pakistan will find itself marginalised. Its ally China is merely a fair-weather friend, which means the Islamic country will have to face the consequences of warming up to Beijing.