ISLAMABAD, March 2: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Saturday expressed dismay and sorrow over large-scale communal violence in India, and said violence against the Muslim community had caused deep distress and concern among the people of Pakistan.

Deploring the Feb 27 train attack leading to the loss of more than 50 lives, the president said in a statement that the incident could not provide licence for the reprehensible brutalities and violence against the Muslim community that had caused hundreds of deaths, destruction of property and desecration of Muslim religious places.

He said the measures taken by the government of India for the protection of its Muslim minority, which is the target of Hindu extremism and terrorism, needed to be strengthened. He said the carnage must be brought to an end and all those responsible for the violence be arrested and punished.

The president said the violence and mayhem in India had again highlighted the dangers posed by politics of communalism and the forces of extremism and terrorism.

The international community cannot afford to be complacent or take a biased view in responding to and combating this evil in whichever form it manifested and wherever it existed, he added.