New Delhi will have to work through a set of unexpected challenges that have emerged consequent to the punitive expedition that was undertaken after the Pahalgam terror attack, which had Pakistan’s fingerprints all over it.

The Prime Minister promised that he would go to the ends of the earth to find and punish the perpetrators of that dastardly attack. The fact is, after the ceasefire, we have no additional information as to what happened to these perpetrators or their handlers. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri alluded to intelligence in that area, but he wasn’t very explicit about whether we had been able to pin down all the particulars for further action. In the absence of information regarding the fate of the attackers, questions that cry out for a satisfactory answer are bound to swirl. Where are those perpetrators now, and have they been neutralised, and if not, where are we on that process?

It has been carefully put out that the ceasefire between New Delhi and Islamabad is solely the result of parleys between the two Director Generals of Military Operations, and that the call materialised from the Pakistan side. The suggestion is the Pakistanis sued for peace. Yet, it is spinning out as though they cried Uncle Sam, which is not nearly the same thing. In terms of sequence though, President Donald Trump went public with it, claiming credit for the American role in the matter even before Foreign Minister........

© Free Press Journal