NEW DELHI, Oct 17: As a Pakistani delegation arrived here to resume the dialogue with India on nuclear and conventional confidence building measures (CBMs) and a flagging anti-terror mechanism, New Delhi blamed Islamabad for a string of apparently unconnected but lethal blasts in Hyderabad, Ajmer and Ludhiana.
The claim, coupled with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assertion recently that bilateral talks with Pakistan had slowed down due to its internal problems, is expected to cast a shadow over the two-phase talks starting on Thursday.
That India’s National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan, currently with the prime minister on a tour of African countries, made the comments in an interview with the Indian Express could hardly be missed by the Pakistani delegation.
Mr Narayanan said: “There is no connection between the blasts in Ludhiana, Ajmer and Makkah Masjid (Hyderabad) other than the fact that the ISI’s involvement is suspected. That is the common link.”
On the Ludhiana blasts, that killed six migrant workers in a cinema hall, Mr Narayanan was more pointed: “There has been a manifest attempt in Pakistan to build up a radical Sikh environment. Sporadic blasts were creating sensation, but the desired effect of sustained tension was not working. We had intelligence about four to six months back that a lot of effort was going into attempts to foment militancy.”
He said the blasts were not entirely unexpected. “We have tracked intelligence information, we have studied the way such attacks take place and we can read a pattern. We have also seen signs of resuscitation of militant groups in Canada, US and Germany. We had been bracing for such a move by such elements,” he said.
The attacks at Makkah Masjid and Ajmer Sharif are believed by Indian intelligence to be connected to the larger “jehadi” network — in the Indian context, translating into Lashkar-i-Toiba and, more recently, the Bangladesh-based HUJI.
“They have a feeling that the Kashmir issue is not able to attract the kind of attention they would want it to. We believe that some thinking has gone in, they are looking to change their style. So far it has been sporadic, soft attacks.
“But the human grief is not exactly adding up to the big impact they would want to see. Our information is that they may try high profile targets in and around Kashmir and also outside the state,” Mr Narayanan said.
While he did not absolve the Pakistani establishment of its “inability to rein in the ISI,” Mr Narayanan told the Express that “very often such agencies develop their own momentum and are difficult to control”.
“Our real problem is the need for much more vigilance on ground. There is no Al Qaeda on the ground in India as yet, but we have to be wary of random groups and individuals for various reasons — sympathy for violent groups for social, personal or economic reasons — and be alert to them. We need many more eyes and ears on the ground,” he said.
Director General for South Asia Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry and Additional Secretary for the UN and EU Khalid Aziz Babar are leading the talks for Pakistan.
