Must not derail peace
What was being widely feared has happened. Terrorists have once again targeted Mumbai, the symbol of India’s industrial advancement and the hub of its great film industry. The three attacks taking a toll of at least 21 lives indicate coordination, sufficient to establish that they are the handiwork of a terrorist group. The use of IEDs made from material abundantly available in India and the choice of the targets indicates that the attacks might have been carried out by a ragtag group rather than any of the sophisticated terrorist networks. However, keeping in view that Al-Qaeda and TTP are currently under great pressure from operations being conducted by the Pakistan military, they too could encourage incidents of the sort to bring the two countries into confrontation, thus forcing Pakistan to relocate troops to its eastern borders.
There is a need for both India and Pakistan to react to these attacks with realism. There are elements in both countries who strongly oppose friendly ties between the neighbouring states. They are likely to use the incident to promote ill will. The incident comes at a time when some progress had been made by the two governments to break the ice that had set in after 26/11. Preparations were now afoot to hold Pak-India dialogue at the foreign secretaries’ level leading to talks between the political leadership. It would be highly unfortunate for South Asia if the region was again to be pushed back to a state of cold war. It is in the interest of both Pakistan and India to foil the attempts by retrogressive forces.
Islamabad has to realise that the issue of terrorism would be foremost in the mind of the Indian side at the next round of talks. Pakistan would therefore have to go more than half way to redress New Delhi’s apprehensions. Ground realities are gradually forcing a realisation in Pakistan that terrorists rather than India pose the principal threat to the country. Similarly there are people in India who believe that the war against terrorism can only be won with Pakistan’s cooperation. This is therefore the most opportune time to make the talks successful. The two countries cannot afford to lose the opportunity for peace.
