Periscope on Pakistan

Periscope on Pakistan

Hundred days of a bumpy ride
DAWN: As he completes his hundred days in power, General Pervez Musharraf hasn't gotten over his initial hurdles yet. There is no evidence that he has got a handle on the problems inherited or the ones newly created. The justification of the coup itself is still to be nailed.

Case in point
The plane conspiracy case, as it is called, hangs fire. The sudden amendment to change the level of the bench at the start surprised many people.

The bench's throwing a fit the other day at the presence of a few intelligence operatives as if this was unheard of or was unlawful and transferring the case back to whence it had started puzzled them even more. The recurrent adjournments have already taken up three months without even the charges being framed.

The supposedly open-and-shut case expected to be disposed of within days by an anti-terrorist court, now looks likely to be still with us this time next year. More than 50 witnesses stand lined up to give testimonyand to be cross-examined at length by an army of lawyers. All this has not strengthened the government's case in the public eye. It has certainly done no harm to the cause of Mian Nawaz Sharif. The picking up of some of the relatives and associates of the former ruler also causes niggling discomfort. What are they in for? The questions remain in the air.

The red flag
General Musharraf had been the bad boy in the Indian eyes since even before he took over power. They held him solely responsible for their discomfiture or betrayal in Kargil.

That also settled their attitude towards the coup. They had dealt with Pakistani military rulers in the past, some with much apparent cordiality, but this one was already a red rag. They had the SAARC summit cancelled to prevent his participation. They led the move to have Pakistan suspended from the Commonwealth partly to the same end. And they look resolved to block any bilateral negotiations as long as they can help it while he is there.

The hijack ofthe Indian plane could not have come at a worse moment for relations between the two countries. The Indians apparently saw the hijack, coming as it did in the midst of a continuing chain of fierce militancy in Kashmir, as an enactment of just that warning. To them this was Kargil in another guise.