NEW DELHI, July 11: The first anniversary of the Mumbai train bombing that killed 187 commuters and rocked India’s fragile peace talks with Pakistan brought a mixed bag of challenges and insults for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday, who stood accused of befriending Islamabad at Washington’s behest but not fighting terrorism at home.

Thousands of Mumbai residents lit candles, offered flowers and bowed their heads for the victims of the seven devastating blasts in packed commuter trains on July 11 last year. At least two of the more than 800 injured are still in coma.

Thirteen men allegedly belonging to Lashkar-i-Tayyaba and the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, have been arrested over the bombings.

The main opposition rightwing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party accused Prime Minister Singh’s UPA coalition of pandering to Pakistan and also to Indian Muslims by not pursuing an effective anti-terror policy.

“This failure is self-willed,” said former BJP home minister Lal Kishan Advani. In a reference to Pakistan soon after the July 11 attacks, Dr Singh had accused “elements across the border” of helping the attacks in Mumbai. Mr Advani exploited the opening.

“Soon after 7/11, the Prime Minister’s first reaction was that it was the handiwork of Pakistan. However, within a few weeks, he announced in Havana, after a meeting with Gen Pervez Musharraf, that India and Pakistan would establish a Joint Mechanism to fight terrorism,” he said in a statement.

“It was shocking to see that India, in its fight against terror, was going to join hands with the very same country that has all along used terrorism as a state policy against India. Indeed, previous governments had spent many years to convince the world community that the source of global terrorism is Pakistan. Yet, under foreign pressure, the UPA government last year made a U-turn on India’s approach and decided to consider Islamabad as a partner in the fight against terrorism.”

Similar accusations were heaped on the prime minister by the media. “With Indians coming on the radar of global jihadi terror, the UPA government cannot afford to keep looking the other way,” said the Indian Express.

“No longer can the government pressure the police to go slow on investigations as it may offend a particular community.”

Since the blasts, police have installed door-frame metal detectors and closed-circuit TV cameras at railway stations, and use hand-held detectors for random checks of commuters. One of seven train coaches badly damaged by the blasts was repaired and put back on the tracks to mark the first anniversary.