India warns Pakistan over terror groups

India’s leader today warned Pakistan that its failure to rein in terrorist groups operating from its territory is undermining public support for the peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said every Indian wants to live in a prosperous, borderless South Asia, but such aspirations can only be realised if there is “an atmosphere of peace".

Singh said India had launched several initiatives to achieve peace, especially with neighbouring Pakistan, but terror attacks such as the deadly Bombay train bombings of July 11 were undoing the efforts.

India suspects Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups were responsible for the blasts, which killed 207 people.

“Unless Pakistan takes concrete steps to implement the pledge it has made to crack down against terrorist groupings operating from its territory, public support (in India) for the peace process will be undermined,” Singh said in an Independence Day address to the nation.

Since winning independence from Britain in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two over Kashmir.

More than a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting security forces in India’s portion of Kashmir for the region’s independence, or its merger with mostly Muslim Pakistan. The conflict has killed at least 68,000 people since 1989, most of them civilians.

India accuses Pakistan of training and funding the militants. Pakistan denies the charge and has promised to crack down against militant groups operating in its side of Kashmir.

“The dream of a South Asian community, where borders have ceased to matter, where there is an unhindered flow of goods and peoples, culture and ideas, can hardly be realised if terrorism and the politics of hate and confrontation continue to cast a dark shadow,” Singh said.