We’ll snap ties, India warns Pakistan

Delhi asks Islamabad to clamp down on terror groups, foreign secy heads for US with proof

NEW DELHI: As evidence mounts about Pakistani links to the stunning Mumbai terror strike, India has lodged a strong diplomatic protest with Islamabad in the form of a written demarche.

The note from external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee to his counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani was handed over to Pakistan’s foreign office on Saturday. It warned of a freeze in bilateral ties unless Pakistan lived up to its January 2004 promise of clamping down on terrorist groups operating from its soil. Although couched in diplomatic language, the message was a repeat of Mukherjee’s “enough is enough” telephonic conversation with Gilani on Friday.

The demarche, considered the ultimate diplomatic tool, came amid intense diplomatic activity by the US to prevent Indo-Pak tensions from escalating into another Operation Parakram when heavy military buildup along the border raised international fears of a nuclear flashpoint in South Asia. Operation Parakram was launched by the Vajpayee government after terrorists struck at Parliament House on December 13, 2001.

A highly placed government source denied western reports about possible military action by India against Pakistan-based terrorist camps in the wake of the Mumbai incident.  

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, however, held detailed discussions on Sunday morning with the author of Operation Parakram, Brajesh Mishra, who was Vajpayee’s National Security Advisor.

Mishra refused to divulge details of his talks with the PM, but said he did not think the Manmohan Singh government would go in for military action against Pakistan. He felt that there will be “a pause” in Indo-Pak engagement, given the angry domestic mood after what happened in Mumbai.

India’s demarche is the first sign that the five-year-old peace process with Pakistan is on the verge of being frozen. The PM has summoned a meeting of the union cabinet’s apex body on security matters on Tuesday to discuss the measures available to the government to turn up the heat on Pakistan on the terrorism issue. Among the steps being considered are calling off the dialogue process, discontinuing air and rail links and launching an international propaganda war on the flourishing terrorist networks in Pakistan.

The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday because by then, the government will have inputs from foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon’s discussions in Washington. Menon left for the US on Sunday night. He is believed to be carrying the evidence gathered by intelligence agencies of the Pakistani connection to the Mumbai attack. Among the documents are the arrested terrorist’s confession and intercepts of satellite phone conversations between the attackers and their handlers in Pakistan.

As India moves to turn the screws on Pakistan, Islamabad has launched a hectic counter-campaign with Washington to rein in New Delhi. A Pakistani security official told journalists in Islamabad on Saturday that the army would not hesitate to withdraw its troops from the anti-Al Qaeda and anti-Taliban operations on the Pak-Afghan border and divert them to the Indo-Pak border to defend the country against an Indian attack.

The warning sounded alarm bells in Washington, as it was meant to, as the US is heavily dependent on the Pakistani army to clean up the terrorist-infested regions in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The Bush Administration is in regular touch with Indian authorities in an effort to defuse the mounting crisis.