The dominant theme in Pakistani reactions to the Pahalgam outrage is that India has rushed to blame Pakistan for this as a default reaction, without pausing to consider other explanations or possibilities. Given the fact that a package of very significant diplomatic measures was announced against Pakistan soon after the terrorist outrage, such a reaction was inevitable.

Yet for many in Pakistan, the conclusion that India will invariably blame Pakistan as a means of coercion comes naturally. Thus, after every major terrorist attack, the issue of evidence is raised as a defensive reaction. In the past, the Pakistani position was often of a joint inquiry or a joint investigation. This time the position is a slight variant with the suggestion for an impartial third-party enquiry.

So adversarial is the current climate and so hyper charged are sentiments, that there is little room for introspection on Pakistan’s behaviour in the past. The Mumbai terrorist attack of 2008 is a case in point. The reams of evidence then gathered and presented were being processed, although at a snail’s pace, through the Pakistan legal system. Lack of evidence was not really the issue and a number of distinguished Pakistani police officers and prosecutors built a strong case. But an all-pervasive defensiveness where India is concerned, made blocking that case into a kind of patriotic duty for a certain Pakistani mindset.

In the end, this defensive mindset meant that Pakistan found it more expedient to take action a decade........

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