The recent visuals of Pakistan’s army brass attending Salat-ul-Janazah (funeral prayers) for the terrorists killed in Operation Sindoor are revealing indeed. It proves that the line between the armed forces and terrorists, by extension the constituted authority and non-state depredators, has been blurred in Pakistan.

This has something to do with the legacy of Islam, which Pakistan could not outgrow despite being a nation-state and a UN member. Pakistan views the terrorists groomed to fight India in Jammu & Kashmir as Mujahideen, an honourable term in Islam. Mujahid is a warrior in the cause of Islam (Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, P.418). It is the Arabic word for those who wage Jihad.

The armed forces reflect the ethos of the nation. Pakistan is certainly no exception. The forces of Pakistan hail the Mujahideen, because the society is not very different. On February 27, 1973, about three thousand Pakistanis residing in Britain converged at Hyde Park in London to mourn two youths, viz. Basharat Hussain (19) and Mohammed Hanif (19), killed in police firing. Therein hangs a tale.

What necessitated the police firing in the first place? On February 20, three masked youths, including the duo, trespassed into the building of the Indian High Commission at Aldwych, London, at 9.30 AM GMT. They were armed with toy pistols (which they posed as real) filled with corrosive liquid and swords. They held up some diplomatic personnel who were arriving for the day, or already inside. They threatened the staff and tied up two employees with rope and demanded the keys to the main door (to lock it up from inside). It was an amateurish hostage-taking exercise, but nonetheless a cognisable offence. One of the employees of the High Commission luckily escaped through the plate glass window before jumping onto the street to alert the police. The police promptly arrived on the scene, only to find the front door locked from inside. They had to enter through a side entrance. The police, warning that they were fully armed, appealed to the intruders to surrender forthwith. The call had no effect on the intruders, compelling the police to open fire.

While Basharat Hussain and Mohammed Hanif succumbed to the bullets, their underage accomplice was apprehended. It might be mentioned that India’s High Commission in the UK was one of the biggest Indian missions anywhere in the world. At that time, reportedly, about 400 persons worked there.

A short newsreel by Associated Press and another by British Pathé capture the hostage-taking drama in the Indian High Commission at Aldwych. The incident resonated in the House of Commons the same day. Leonard Robert Carr, Home Secretary in Edward Heath’s........

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