Two Italian marines, charged in India with the murder of two fishermen, will not be returning to India to face trial, Italy's foreign ministry has just said. Big surprise. The Indian government is shocked.

Shocked? They should be embarrassed that they fell smack, right dab into the trap.

Unless they were part of the plan.

Wake up, New Delhi. You sent them home for a four-week break from an Indian prison so they could cast a vote and this is the second time you did it and now they are not going to come back, and you, the Indian government are moaning about it.

The Supreme Court earlier allowed Massimilian Latorre and Salvatore Girone to go home for Christmas, and now to vote in elections.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh has said “it is unacceptable” in order to appease the Kerala Assembly, that being the state from which the killed fishermen came from. So what level of threat does “unacceptable” indicate? Zilch, absolutely nothing. In fact, it sounds absurd. Of course it is unacceptable, Sir, but what are you going to do about it? 

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid has said, “India will respond.” Only words, mean diddly squat.

Cold comfort, Indian people. What will you do as you respond? Attack Italy? Boycott the vote for the Pope even though that is a sovereign territory? Ban pizzas? Root for France in the next football game between the two?

The birds have flown the coop. There is nothing you can do, gentlemen; you let it happen, you agreed to let it happen, the odds are you sent them for Xmas with the deal they come back so they win credibility (and so do you) and can go again to vote — all of this is a major deflection of the public mind. And now there is a tacit agreement to let them do the one-way ticket thing. That suspicion will not disappear. All this blarney about summoning the Italian envoy is window dressing.

Can you imagine an Italian court allowing two Indians accused of shooting two Italians catching Air India for Diwali break?

Give us a break, too. We are not that stupid. Nor can Indian diplomacy and governance be so naïve and childlike that you’d actually believe they would fly back after a four-week permission to cast a political vote that takes one day. The first return was definitely integral to the big picture. A sort of ‘see, we trusted them, they retained the trust, so we trusted them again’. Why?