INDIA: India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, yesterday accused Pakistan of supporting the Mumbai train bombers and urged it to rein in terrorists operating from its territory to allow the ongoing peace negotiations between the two states to progress.
"We are certain that these terror modules [responsible for the Mumbai blasts] are instigated, inspired and supported by elements across the border, without which they cannot act with such devastating effect," he said after meeting victims of Tuesday's blasts at various Mumbai hospitals.
Pakistan rejected Mr Singh's "unsubstantiated" allegations. "India has not given us anything in writing or talked of any evidence," said Pakistan's foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam. She also dismissed as "baseless" Indian federal home ministry accusations that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was behind the Mumbai bombings.
Earlier, Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, condemned the blasts, expressed sympathy for the victims and offered to help India investigate the attacks.
Mr Singh said Pakistan had assured India two years ago its territory "would not be used to promote, encourage, aid and abet terrorism", but this "assurance has to be fulfilled before the [ ongoing] peace process and other processes progress".
He said investigators were certain terror cells were operating in Mumbai and other parts of India.
Security officials have said they suspect the Pakistan-based and ISI-backed Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT or Army of the Pious) - which is leading the Muslim insurgency in the northern Kashmir province - of planning and executing the Mumbai blasts.
In the past, the LeT has used similar simultaneous explosions in Indian cities, including an October attack in New Delhi that killed more than 60 people.