China’s defence of Azhar has dire ramifications for Valley

Arun Joshi

China has played its old game yet again by blocking the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar’s designation as international terrorist at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) last night, stonewalling a determined bid by other global powers to strike at the faces of the profile of propagators and perpetrators of terrorism.

This has renewed the world-known fact that China would go to any extent to shield its strategic ally and friend Pakistan from anyone naming and shaming it for the terrorism that it promotes to bleed India via Kashmir.

The resolution of naming Masood as international terrorist could not go ahead because of China’s obstinacy. It has increased India’s difficulties in Kashmir immeasurably.

Masood Azhar’s group with an all-out support of the Pakistan army and ISI has been quite aggressive and lethal in the Valley in the recent months. The February 14 Pulwama attack that left 40 CRPF personnel dead brought spotlight on its designs becoming more and more murderous.

But the Pulwama attack cannot be counted as the last despite the security forces having achieved a stupendous success in their operations against militants, and in particular against the JeM. Since February 14, the security forces have eliminated 14 Jaish militants in different operations.

Ground reports suggest that there are many others who, like Adil Adil Ahmad Dar, the suicide bomber of Pulwama, are learning the art of violent death and killing many whom they deem as their targets.

Security experts view this development at the UNSC where a determined bid by the P-3 - the United States of America, the UK and France - to get Masood Azhar in the hall of shame of the international terrorists was stonewalled by China on technical grounds as nothing new, but in the given situation can infuse new and dangerous make-up in the Valley. “The P-3 had maintained the same stand earlier too and China had blocked it,” Gurbachan Jagat, former Governor of Manipur, who during his tenure as the J&K police chief for nearly four years had handled many a crisis, observed when asked about the fall-out of the latest move at the UNSC and China’s role in it.

“However, with this development (at the UNSC), there could be a psychological impact where the militancy sympathisers will see rising China-Pakistan bonhomie adding to the symbolism of the face of Pakistani militancy in Kashmir that Masood Azhar represents,” Jagat said.

There are a few other facts that should not be lost sight of — Masood Azhar is the Jaish chief and he says and complies with what he is told by the Pakistani establishment. He is a name to the terror-designs of Pakistan that wants to increase militancy and violence in Kashmir to the extent that India talks to Islamabad to talk to it.

Since India is not talking to Pakistan, the groups like the Jaish would raise the bar of their acts.

It is here where the oratory and demagoguery of Masood Azhar helps Pakistan in its violence-oriented designs in Kashmir. The security forces are preparing for the fall out of the latest development at the UNSC. They fear more attacks and more violence in Kashmir.