Pakistan has long been accusing India of trying to sabotage the
China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Top Pakistani politicians and army
generals have been blaming India for staging attacks in Pakistan through its
external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Obviously, all
this has been without proof.
But now the Pakistani propaganda has gone a step ahead by
incorporating figures like when India founded this so called anti-CPEC cell and
how much fund was allocated to it. General
Zubair Mahmood Hayat, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of Pakistan,
while addressing an event in Islamabad today, charged India of running a cell
to disrupt the CPEC.
“RAW
established a new cell with a special allocation of over $500 million in 2015
to sabotage CPEC projects in Pakistan,” a Dawn report quoted him saying. While
addressing an event in Islamabad, he further said, “India's indirect
interference in Pakistan is manifested in sponsoring Tehreek-i-Taliban-Pakistan
(TTP), Baloch and other sub-nationalist outfits and many other terrorist
groups.”
Now the
world can see through such baseless allegations coming from a country that is
seen as a safe haven for terrorists and is increasingly becoming isolated in
the world for this very reason, especially when it is against India, the world’s
largest democracy, a growing global power, both economically as well as
militarily and a responsible geopolitical entity.
It
is Pakistan, in fact, that has been giving shelter to India’s and the world’s most
wanted like Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Hafiz Saeed, Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Masood Azhar,
Dawood Ibrahim and is main terror exporter to India, a fact that major world
powers including the US and UK have started accepting. How can the world forget
that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was in hiding in Pakistan for years before
he was hunted down and killed? How can Pakistan convince the world that it is
not home to the Taliban and Al Qaeda factions and the Haqqani Network?
While
the ruling Pakistani elite have been brazenly lying about establishing peace in
their country and browbeating their propaganda to the world to tell that they
have wiped out every terror outfit, the fact is, this year alone, over 450
civilians and around 200 security forces personnel have lost their lives in
over 100 incidents in the country, data from South Asia Terrorism Portal shows.
WHY
INDIA IS OPPOSED TO THE CPEC
China’s One Belt One Road
initiative aims to de velop economic corridors in Asia, Africa and Europe,
something that India is opposed to as one of such corridors, the CPEC. India is
opposed to CPEC because a part of it passes through Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir
that is legally India’s. For strategic reasons also, India doesn’t welcome a
Chinese presence just across the border in a disputed territory that India
considers its own.
CPEC, AN INTERNAL SECURITY
NIGHTMARE FOR PAKISTAN
Pakistan sees the CPEC, a
long term $75 billion project from Gwadar port in Balochistan to Kashgar
China’s Xinjiang province, as the next big thing in the nation’s history that
will transform it into of hub and economic activity in this part of Asia.
But the fact is, it passes through
many restive regions of Pakistan including Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) and
Balochistan and terrorists groups that are hostile to China, including TTP and
Al Qaeda, have threatened to attack Chinese investments in the corridor to
avenge the so-called atrocities against Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang province.
Then there are ethnic people of
areas the CPEC passes through who are opposed to it. A combine of religious
groups in Gilgit Baltistan has demanded the complete removal of Pakistan’s Army
from its soil.
Baloch people, who are fighting
the Pakistani establishment for their freedom and have long been accusing
Pakistan of exploiting their province, see the CPEC as yet another tool to
exploit the Baloch people. Baloch nationalists blame Pakistan for forcefully
acceding their province. Pakistani security forces are alleged to have killed
thousands of Baloch people. Reports of rape, torture and disappearances are
common. Baloch people say they are ethnically different from Pakistanis and are
demanding freedom or autonomy to decide their own affairs.
How bad is the security
scenario in the CPEC regions also reflects in the fact that Pakistan has raised
a Special Security Division (SSD) of 15000 soldiers to protect some 7000
Chinese individuals and CPEC installations that are coming up. This is when the
project has just begun. The CPEC was proposed in 2013 and an agreement between
Pakistan and China was signed in May 2013.
©SantoshChaubey