Feb.15 : What we know so far about the Saturday bomb blast in Pune is not sufficient to lead us to firm inferences about who the perpetrators are. It is clear, however, that this act of terrorism bears no resemblance with the assault on Mumbai. We should, therefore, not over-dramatise it. No shots were fired. Indeed, there were no overt attackers. As Union home minister P. Chidambaram has noted, it was an “insidious” attack — a backpack laden with explosives blew up at an eatery. The fact remains, however, that it was an act of murderous terrorism.
Although the café where the explosion occurred is in proximity of the places that were surveyed by David Headley, the US citizen of Pakistani origin who as a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operative reconnoitred places in Mumbai that were assaulted on 26/11, the Pune blast need not necessarily be linked with the previous movements or the planning done by the dubious American, although nothing can obviously be ruled out. We can only know more as the investigation progresses. Equally, at this stage of investigation when not much is known, it may be unwise to rule out the involvement of a far right group run by the likes of Colonel Purohit who was found to be mixed up with dangerous Hindu chauvinists who rigged up the Malegaon blast in order to discredit the Muslim community as perpetrators of terrorism in India. But no matter what sort of people are behind the Pune blast, the foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan scheduled for February 25 are likely to be negatively impacted.It may well be the case that the meeting offered by India will not be cancelled. Nonetheless, the main Opposition party, the BJP, will have reasonable ground to assert that the offer of an ice-breaking conversation with Pakistan at this stage was ill-advised as fundamentals on the ground had not changed in respect of Islamabad moving purposively to crack down on the infrastructure of India-oriented terrorism on its soil. The logic is likely to have resonance. After 26/11, the mood in the country anyway appeared ambivalent on the issue of engaging Pakistan in constructive talks. It is another matter that in the conduct of diplomacy it was difficult for the government to overlook the fact that Pakistan, under pressure from India and the world community, has brought to trial some half a dozen of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba leadership and others who appear to have played a part in organising the November 2008 Mumbai carnage. All the same, even if the proposed foreign secretary-level talks are not called off or rescheduled in the light of events, India is unlikely to display too much patience with Pakistan’s broad charter of demands as the two high-level officials meet. That effectively puts paid to Islamabad’s ambition of seeking to use the foreign secretary talks as a stepping stone to the “composite dialogue” that India broke off following 26/11. The US military engagement in Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban places India under unseen diplomatic pressure from Washington. America has erroneously surmised that if India underlines normality in its dealings with Pakistan, Islamabad would be persuaded to go after the Taliban (who occupy the territories that lie between Pakistan and Afghanistan) in a more determined fashion, and that this would aid the US effort in Afghanistan. It is time New Delhi was more upfront and let the US know that it will deal with Islamabad in the light of its own perceptions which may be at odds with those of Washington.