November 11, 2005 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
It turns out that Roshan Ali’s fantastic tale of abduction and harassment was, in the end, a figment of his own imagination. That should create embarassment at the Pakistani high commission in New Delhi. But the Pakistani foreign office, never famous for acknowledging reality, is unlikely to accept any innocent explanation (if Roshan Ali’s behaviour can be termed that).
Say, are the Ramsay Brothers still around?
Related Link: The usually reasonable Daily Times is driven to speculation and sermonising.
Our own assessment, based on past record of how agencies on both sides work, is that some elements in the Indian intelligence set-up decided, after the Delhi bombings, to send a signal to Pakistan.
Our advice to both governments, and in this case to the Indian government, is not to allow the traditional mindset of bureaucrats and intelligence operatives to muddy the waters yet again. We do understand that India being a democracy, and an unwieldy one at that, moves slowly. However, that is no reason for the Indian government or at least some elements therein to show cussedness of the type that has been on show in this particular incident. And if we take the response of the Indian government into account, which describes the whole incident as the figment of the boy’s imagination, it is clear that New Delhi wants to top its cussedness with churlish dissembling. [DT emphasis added]
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