India has virtually shelved the peace process with Pakistan in view of Islamabad’s flip-flops on acting “convincingly” against the Lashkar-e-Toiba, which was involved in the last month’s terrorist attack on Mumbai. However, the chill in the Indo-Pak relations after the Mumbai strikes will not impact trans-border bus and train links, which have proved an effective channel for increasing people-to-people contacts between the two neighbours.
Highly placed sources in the government said: “Official-level negotiations, which were part of the confidence building measures initiated in 2004, have been put on hold indefinitely.’’
Making it clear that New Delhi was neither a war-monger nor was it using “coercive” methods to pressurise Islamabad into acting against the terrorists on its soil, official sources said: “We will continue to pressurise Pakistan primarily to prevent the recurrence of more strikes of the kind we saw in Mumbai, and for bringing the perpetrators of the crime, who are in Pakistan, to India.’’
Though India has refused to set any deadline for Islamabad to act on its demands — which had been officially given in a demarche to the Pakistani envoy in New Delhi soon after the Mumbai attack, sources said: “Pakistan will have to face consequences (of its inaction).”
However, what has upset New Delhi the most is the discordant notes from the Pakistani authorities in the wake of Mumbai terrorist strike and deliberate attempts within the country to raise the war hysteria against India. “Pakistan’s reaction after the 26/11 strikes is unprecedented,” sources said. “Our dilemma is that we have to deal with a fragmented Pakistan — where the formal authority is different than the actual power centre,” a top-ranking official in the government said.