Mr P. Chidambaram, India’s home minister, said on Thursday that relations with Pakistan would not be affected, cautioning against a rush to judgment about who was responsible until there was more evidence. Mumbai police had said there were indications a domestic terrorist group, the Indian Mujahideen, might have been involved. The planned meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers in New Delhi on July 27 is expected to go ahead as planned. India discontinued peace talks with Pakistan after the 26/11 2008 attack on Mumbai’s hotels and train station that left 166 dead. However, relations between the two countries have improved since the beginning of this year.
In late March, Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, invited Yousuf Gilani, his Pakistani counterpart, to watch India’s cricket World Cup semi-final with Pakistan in the Indian city of Chandigarh. In June, the two countries’ foreign secretaries met in Islamabad. Earlier this month, Nirupama Rao, India’s foreign secretary, said she believed the “prism” through which Pakistan viewed the issue of cross-border terrorism and safe havens for terrorists had altered. However, India’s leading opposition party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, on Thursday wasted no time in saying the attack was “a policy failure” on the part of India’s Congress-led government because it continued to equivocate in its dealings with Pakistan. “Our basic premise for relations with Pakistan must be: ‘You must dismantle the infrastructure for terrorism you have created’. The whole world knows this,” said Lal Krishna Advani, a senior leader of the BJP.
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