Time up, act now on Pathankot, US directs Pakistan

The US has given an unequivocal directive to Pakistan that Islamabad should bring the brains behind the Pathankot airbase terror attack to justice the soonest. The US condemned the Pathankot attack by Pakistani-based terrorists on the day they stormed the airbase on New Year's Day. Washington told Islamabad that there was no more discriminating between good terrorists and bad terrorists by Pakistan and that Pakistan should act with earnestness in the matter. A top offficial of the US Home Department reminded Pakistan about the measures it had promised to take publicly and privately against its home-grown terrorists. It was high time Islamabad implemented them. Line up the terrorist masterminds before the courts, Washington told Islamabad bluntly. India has meanwhile gathered evidence that the Pathankot terrorists originated in Pakistan and that the brains behind the attack were also Pakistani. The US urgency arises from the fact that Pakistan is a master of international deceit. While receiving massive American aid, Pakistan had kept Washington in the dark for 10 years about the whereabouts of Al Qaeda chief Obam Bin Bladen, whom it had declared as enemy No.1. Subsequently, the US on its own bearded bin Laden in his den in Abbottabad Army base in Pakistan, with a surprise and stunning operation by its Navy Seals. By its strategic partnership with India, the US is bound to give such a directive to Pakistan. But one can take a horse to a pond, but can't make it drink water. So India maybe forced to act in the matter in case of Pakistan's perpetual duplicity and denial. As the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee had warned of a Cold Start strategy against a reckless adversary, if it does not act to reason, Pakistan knows the just deserts in store for it.