Supporting India's claims on the attack, Mr Qazi said India has provided Pakistan 'actionable intelligence' regarding the attack on the Pathankot air base. (AFP photo)
Raising questions over the role of Pakistan's military in the Pathankot terror attack, a former ambassador to India has said that the Army does not appreciate Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's attempts to decide on the country's policy towards India.
Ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi's comments in an op-ed in published in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper come in the wake of Pathankot attack and a simultaneous attack on Indian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan just ahead of the Foreign Secretary level talks between Indian and Pakistan scheduled for January 15.
Mr Qazi speculates that the Pathankot Attack could be the military establishment's way of telling the prime minister "who is the boss".
"It is not yet clear what our military's attitude was to (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi's stopover in Lahore. We know that Kargil happened after (prime minister Atal Bihari) Vajpayee's visit to Lahore in 1999; Mumbai occurred after progress in the backchannel talks of the mid-2000s; and now Pathankot takes place after another Lahore yatra (trip)," Mr Qazi said.
"Has our prime minister once again been 'reined in' by 'the boys' (a term used to describe military establishment) to let him know who is boss?" he wrote.
Supporting India's claims on the attack, Mr Qazi said India has provided Pakistan 'actionable intelligence' regarding the attack on the Pathankot air base and demands satisfactory follow-up action if the foreign secretary talks are to start in three days' time.
A repeat of the Mumbai stand-off would expose Pakistan to "ridicule and ignominy", Mr Qazi said, adding that the country could come under immense international pressure, including the threat of sanctions, if it does not cooperate with India.
He also criticised the concept of civil-military relations is Pakistan and said that the Pakistani establishment regard the Kashmiri struggle only as 'philosophical', and 'irrelevant' concerns.
Mr Qazi served as Pakistan's High Commissioner to India from 1997-2002, Ambassador to China from 1994 to 1997 and to Russia from 1991-1994.