PM to call Pak over Mumbai attacks; tough talks likely

HEALING TOUCH: PM Manmohan Singh meets an injured man at the J J Hospital in Mumbai.

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New Delhi: One and a half day after terrorists armed with sophisticated ammunition reportedly entered Mumbai via sea route, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would talk to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.

Pranab said preliminary information suggested that "some elements" in Pakistan were responsible for the terror strikes in Mumbai and the Government is expected to take up the matter with Islamabad when Prime Singh speaks with Zardari.

Even though India has not singled out Pakistan as being linked to the strikes, Singh said terrorists based outside his country carried them out. That was widely understood in Pakistan to be an accusation of its involvement.

Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said Pakistan "should not be blamed like in the past."

"This will destroy all the goodwill we created together after years of bitterness," he said. "I will say in very categorical terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."

Deteriorating relations between Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars since 1947, would greatly complicate US foreign policy in the region.

Incoming President-elect Barack Obama has said normalising ties between the two South Asian neighbours will be a major plank of his broader campaign to stabilise Afghanistan and beat al-Qaeda in the region.

"You can't cosy up to a country that is accusing you of complicity in terrorism," said Shaun Gregory, an expert on South Asian terrorism at the University of Bradford in Britain. "Any sign of Pakistani involvement would be extraordinarily damaging."

On Friday, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called Singh and condemned the attacks, according to state-run Pakistan Television, which gave no details about the conversation.

The attack late Wednesday saw teams of gunmen attack at least 10 sites, including two luxury hotels, a railway station and a Jewish center, in the financial capital of Mumbai.

In an address to the nation on Thursday, the Singh said the group that carried out the attacks "was based outside the country" and warned its neighbours "that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated."

Earlier, Indian navy spokesman Captain Manohar Nambiar said navy officers had boarded a cargo vessel it suspected of ties to the attacks that had come to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan. He later said the ship was not linked in any way to the strikes.

While the investigation into the attacks was only just starting, many analysts said the terrorists were more likely to be indigenous, Indian extremists blamed for a series of bombings this year than Pakistani-linked ones.

An Indian media report said a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to several media outlets. There was no way to verify that claim.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was in India for talks on a slow-moving South Asian peace process, has said his country will cooperate in any investigation.