Terror factory churns out piles of lies too

NEW DELHI: Pakistan continued to play ���India is the aggressor��� tune for Western capitals, blaming New Delhi for a car bomb blast in Lahore. In what the Indian side labelled an ���amateurish��� attempt to shift the focus from Islamabad���s counter terrorism failures, Pakistan���s intelligence agencies manufactured an ���Indian terrorist��� as the culprit behind the car bomb blast that took place on Wednesday.

Pakistani media reports quoting Pakistani intelligence agencies said that ���an Indian secret agent��� identified as Satish Anand Shukla has been arrested for the blast. Reports further claimed that the ���Indian national��� was a resident of Kolkata living in Pakistan under the alias of Muneer. Some reports even claimed that the ���Indian national��� had worked with the Indian High Commission in London and that documents including a ���valid visa��� had been recovered from the ���Indian national.������

It is no coincidence that the story was put out by the intelligence agencies a day after Pakistan unanimously passed a strongly worded resolution asking the international community to push India to ���close terror cells and stop anti-Pakistan activities from its soil.���

India dismissed the stories as part of Pakistan���s misinformation campaign which is being stage-managed by the Pakistani military. New Delhi is taking the misinformation campaign and the behaviour of the Pakistani military in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks as yet another proof of state complicity in the attacks. This latest episode is sure to add weight to this assessment.

The manufactured Indian terrorist is also being seen as Islamabad���s response to the arrest of a Pakistani Army sepoy Ghulam Farid and two Jaish e Mohammed operatives in Kashmir. According to the J&K police, the three were attempting to disrupt the election process by planning a terror strike.

As international pressure increases on Islamabad to act, the Pakistani military has attempted to paint India as an aggressor in an attempt to deflect attention from the Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks and turn the attention of the international community towards India.

The Pakistan military has also used the ���misinformation campaign��� to create a hysteria war. This is now being followed up with reports and war-like statements about how Pakistan is prepared to militarily take on India. Even after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that India doesn���t want war, the Pakistan air force has been flying sorties over Pakistan���s major cities and the Pakistani army has been moving troops towards the border with India.