‘Indian call is provocative’

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has described as unfair and provocative the Indian Foreign Ministry’s call to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism on its soil, saying that no terrorist infrastructure existed on the Pakistani soil.

Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam said the Indian officials were trying to twist and distort Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri’s statement, just to give an impression that Pakistan has something to do with the bombings. “Kasuri never inferred that the Mumbai terror attacks were the result of the Indo-Pak dispute over Kashmir, as being painted by Navtej Sarna”, she said.

The official story seems to be that, with General Pervez Musharaff himself expressing outrage and sympathy, the peace process between India and Pakistan is still on track.
However, the Indian authorities are attributing the Mumbai attacks to two Islamist groups - both of which Indian security agencies say have connections to both Al Qaeda and to the Inter Services Intelligence.

When reminded that the Indian government had been accusing some Pakistani jehadi groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba for the bomb attacks in Varanasi and Ayodhya, Tasneem Aslam said that these allegations might be an attempt by the Indian security agencies to conceal their failure in maintaining law and order in the country.

On the other hand, a retired intelligence official did not rule out the possibility of the involvement of the LeT in the blasts. He recalled that the Varanasi blast was claimed by the ‘Lashkar-e-Qahhar’ (Army of the Vanquisher), which is just another name for the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The official, who had been involved with the Kashmir desk of the ISI, agreed that Islamic terrorism is again on the rise in India.