You won’t believe what Pakistan is saying about India’s involvement in the Peshawar massacre

Who do you think was responsible for the killing of 141 people, 132 of them children, in an army-run school in Peshawar, Pakistan? The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), right? Especially since they claimed responsibility for the tragedy with alacrity, as a revenge for the Pakistan army’s operation  Zarb-e-Azb against them in North Waziristan.

No ambiguity here, right? Dead wrong.

Just yesterday, Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and the Pakistani defence minister, Khawaja Asif , both dropped insistent hints at India’s role in the Peshawar attack. Said Asif to Dawn News,“India has designs on Pakistan and is helping militants to carry out heinous acts inside Pakistan,”.

“The Taliban have links with India. Also, India’s involvement in the insurgency in Balochistan cannot be ignored,” Asif alleged.

In the same vein, if former President Pervez Musharraf and leading TV anchors in Pakistan are to be believed, the entity squarely responsible for one of Pakistan’s biggest tragedies is, believe it or not – India, and only India.

The TTP was just a tool for India’s grand and evil designs on Pakistan.

Speaking to Mubashir Lucman, a leading TV personality and the anchor of the show Kara Sach on ARY TV, Musharraf said, “The TTP has claimed responsibility for the Peshawar massacre. We know the TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah is in the Kunar province of Afghanistan. He has survived because of the protection given by former president of Afghanistan Hamid Karazai. And, why was he protecting him? Because India was using Mullah Fazlullah to create terror in Pakistan. India is using Afgnaistan and the TTP to wage a proxy war in Pakistan”.

See video of Musharraf rant on India (see from 03:00 minutes to 04:00 minutes again from 15: minutes)

And, what Musharraf is saying is actually polite when compared to other leading lights of the TV business in Pakistan.

For instance, Dr. Amir Liaqat, a prominent broadcaster and a former Minister of religious affairs has this to say a programme he anchors, “I want to be very frank. The people behind the Peshawar killings is India…while India is the killer, the soil of Afghanistan is being used to launch the attacks”.

“The Indians can’t digest the fact of Pakistan since 1947. But, whether you (India) can tolerate the existence of Pakistan or not…tumhare andhar gus jayega Pakistan (untranslatable, and said with an obscene gesture of the fist).  Only then, will you understand the power of Pakistan”.

“Indians have a visceral hatred of Pakistan. Because they think that India was broken to create Pakistan. But, I promise you that we will what is left of India too. The whole of India will be ours”, he thunders.

Watch Aamir Liaqat fulminating against India on Geo TV.

What has added fuel to this anti-India fire is the fact that the Peshawar attack on December 16, the same day that Dakha, the former capital of East Pakistan, fell to the Indian army in 1971 – easily one of the most traumatic days in the life of Pakistan.

This ‘coincidence’ has been used by the anti-India evangelists as ‘proof’ that the attack was India’s bid to irritate the festering wound. This is, especially so, according to a leading light of the Pakistan army, since “a new prime minister (Modi, of course) has taken over in India”. “He (Modi) wants to squeeze Pakistan from the east and west and so the Peshawar attack” , he concludes simply.

See the video below for the General’s wisdom on the Peshawar attack’s connection to Indian action in Bangladesh in 1971. (See from 02:58 to 04:40 minutes)

The ‘proof’ of the Indian hand in the attacks gets even more interesting with one prominent TV personality Dr Shahid Masood holding India responsible because of ‘fire’.

His theory goes like this: In a particularly ghastly incident during attack at Peshawar, some of the teachers who pleaded with the perpetrators to spare their wards, were burnt to death by the terrorists by setting them on fire. Now, who is the only community in the world whose practices involve burning themselves to death through fire — the Hindus via the practice of Sati, their worship of ‘agni devta’, etc. Exactly what the terrorists did in Peshawar.

So, the ‘proof’ of the Indian hand!

On such acrobatics with logic, is the ‘proof’ of the Indian involvement in the Peshawar attack based.

And to be sure, these are not the ‘lunatic fringe’ ventilating their real and perceived grievances against historical wrongs, but established icons  on established Pakistani TV channels on prime time.

It seems, the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream in Pakistan!