‘India gives Pakistan a dirty look’

Warning against the blame-game amid the terror attacks in Mumbai, the Pakistani media on Friday said Islamabad...

Warning against the blame-game amid the terror attacks in Mumbai, the Pakistani media on Friday said Islamabad should not be held responsible for the carnage in India’s financial hub and the peace process should not be allowed to derail.

In editorials that condemned the attacks, the country’s leading dailies cautioned that any indulgence in the blame-game would hamper the ongoing efforts to normalise relations between the two countries.

“India gives Pakistan a dirty look,” said a headline in the Daily News, while another paper said Indian intelligence was under fire and seeking to lay the blame elsewhere. However, the tenor of the Daily Times was moderate as it said that both India and Pakistan faced the same threat of terrorism and needed to work out a “cooperative strategy”.

Unfortunately, it said, this is made nearly impossible by domestic political compulsions and a desire for point scoring among political parties.

“Ongoing investigations into some terrorist attacks that were alternatively blamed on Indian Muslims and Pakistan have shown they were actually carried out by Hindu terrorist networks,” the paper said.

The Dawn counselled that the two countries “without apportioning blame on each other should cooperate in the investigation to make them productive”. “Although one can understand the anger and concern which is widely felt, one would still advice the exercise of restraint in this hour of crisis,” the paper said.

“The loss of more than a hundred lives and injuries to many more is as despicable an act as is humanly conceivable in any circumstances. The daredevil approach and the literal capture of city landmarks also indicate how well entrenched the militants have got over the years,” the Dawn said.

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It is ironical that the attacks came after the two-day talks between the Home secretaries of Pakistan and India where cooperation in fighting terrorism came under discussion, the paper said, adding it is only logical to challenge the militancy through a joint endeavour. The daily advocated that the two countries should not indulge in a blame-game. “It helps no one except the terrorists and it is time everyone realised this simple fact of life.”

The Daily Times warned that the attacks “will give the Right-wing parties the stick to beat the Government with… The speech by Manmohan Singh and his assertion that New Delhi will “take up strongly the use of neighbours’ territory to launch attacks on India could be a reference to Pakistan or Bangladesh or both”.

The News too condemned the “the horror” of what “continues to happen in Mumbai”. “The accusations come not only from within India but from international media channels too. They may well be inaccurate, but the suspicion has been raised and Pakistan’s past track record on terrorism mean they may well stick.”