NEW DELHI, Nov 19: An Indian police probe into an army officer’s alleged role in the Samjhauta Express blasts among other terror attacks could harm talks with Pakistan, India’s main opposition party said on Wednesday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party described ongoing investigations by the Maharashtra state police’s anti-terrorist squad (ATS) as juvenile.

“Earlier the Congress regime was soft on terror, now they have turned juvenile,” BJP spokesman Ravi Shanker Prasad was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying. “The juvenile investigations would encourage jihadi elements in Pakistan and would have an effect on the talks between the two countries which are due in the last week of this month.”

He said the move to malign the armed forces by claiming that the RDX for the Samjhauta blasts was provided by army personnel and then retracting the statement the next day was “very demoralising at a time when the ISI has been propagating the theory that the Indian Army supports terror in Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.

“There is a risk of Pakistan seeking a review of all the terrorist attacks in which India had alleged a Pakistani hand. In the Samjhauta blasts case, we had even provided to Pakistan a photograph of a Pakistani national who was involved,” Mr Prasad said. The morale of the Indian Army should be protected at all costs, he said.

“The ATS theory would give Pakistan an opportunity to prove that India is involved in sponsoring anti-Pakistan campaign on terror,” Mr Prasad said.

Meanwhile, PTI said, the probe into how Hindu outfits accused of terrorism had links with some armymen brought a few business houses under the scanner of the ATS and federal agencies investigating the finances of the group allegedly responsible for the Malegaon blast.

It said a check was being conducted whether the business houses were aware about the end use of funds. “We have questioned some of them and we are working to ascertain as to how much of money had been handed over to the saffron outfit,” a senior probe official said.