The question resulted in a flurry of moves. Pressure Pakistan; ask for cooperation, failing which; get the attention of the western governments (read: the US); hit the pause button on the normalisation process; generally show Pakistan to be perfidious and unreliable, imply that the state was complicit in the actions of the attackers, etcetera.

To use that terrible cliché, suddenly it was déjà vu. There was domestic political need for the Congress-led government to show impatience; to get the job done before the political cost of perceived inaction ran too high.

Not unusual, this. After all this is the downside of democracy, especially in a country as complex and multi-layered as India. But what did it beget? Pakistan, while quietly going about its investigations, pumped up its sinews. The air force flew sorties, the army made some movements, and some sections of the media said “to hell with India”, almost in competition with the vaulting fraternity across the border.

But to return to the issue. Things could have been managed with greater sobriety if New Delhi had retained some patience. Cases of terrorism are not easy to unearth and when investigation agencies begin to unravel plans they still require not just pieces of incriminating circumstantial evidence but enough of such material to become conclusive — or largely so.

Pakistan now has a First Information Report against some alleged terrorists. The case has to go to a court of law. As in all criminal cases, the onus of responsibility for proving culpability lies on the prosecution. The defence counsel(s) have to simply sit back and let the prosecution prove its case before standing up and poking holes in it.

... contd.