said on Friday that Pakistan had become a “fragile” state with militant groups nurtured as “an instrument of state policy” uniting in their battle against the government. Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram issued the warning at the start of talks with United States Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, who was on a four-day trip to India to strengthen anti-terror cooperation between the two countries.
New Delhi has long accused its neighbour of harbouring militant groups, but analysts say it is becoming increasingly concerned that growing unrest in Pakistan could compromise the safety of the country’s growing nuclear arsenal. Chidambaram said in a statement that the “global epicentre of terrorism” was in Pakistan where “the vast infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan has for long flourished as an instrument of state policy”.
“Today, different terrorist groups, operating from the safe havens in Pakistan, are becoming increasingly fused; the society in Pakistan has become increasingly radicalised; its economy has weakened. The state structure in Pakistan has become fragile,” he said. In a joint statement the two sides also promised “comprehensive sharing of information” on the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. Napolitano said that she viewed the banned group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) as an equal to al Qaeda network in terms of danger. “…the US perspective is that the LeT is an organisation which is in the same ranks of al Qaeda-related groups,” Napolitano said.