India-Pakistan formal dialogue unlikely as cross-border terrorism remains sticking point

Though Delhi has not officially reacted to the news, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in a TV interview last Saturday said his country would kill anyone who disturbed the peace in India and fled to Pakistan, in response to a question about the report’s authenticity.

Pakistan’s foreign office then condemned Singh’s statement as “provocative”. Islamabad warned that Indian officials’ “myopic and irresponsible behaviour” could put regional peace at risk, while also calling for accountability from Delhi and claiming to have “irrefutable evidence” linking India to the extrajudicial killings.

Before the verbal brawl, Pakistan’s foreign affairs minister Ishaq Dar had expressed a desire to resume trade with India, even as Islamabad later backtracked from the statement.

Political pundits were optimistic that a thaw in long-standing tensions between India and Pakistan could come with a change of the guard in Islamabad.

Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Centre’s South Asia Institute, said that given both countries were facing significant challenges, Delhi and Islamabad had a strong interest in not allowing their relationship to worsen.

“I think we should look at this reaction in a rhetoric coming out of this Guardian report, it really is performative … [yet] reflecting a worsening relationship,” he added, cautioning that with the fragile ties and historical baggage between both sides, it would not take much for a new crisis to erupt.

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Pakistan, China condemn India-hosted G20 meeting in disputed Kashmir

Kugelman said India and Pakistan had imposed conditions on each other that made it difficult for both to agree to a resumption of formal dialogue.

Senior Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who first broke the story about Indian