Many among the Indian political leadership and the media continue to cry foul as pampered children. Within a couple of hours of the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan's name was all over. While the dozen or so intelligence outfits had miserably failed to preempt the attacks, many among them promptly planted Pakistan-damning information on the attackers, the boats, the ship and their route.   This certainly came as no surprise; beginning with the suicide attack outside the Indian embassy in Kabul in July, the Indian establishment and diplomacy have been crying hoarse to implicate the ISI in the attack.   Indian officials insist that not only did their intelligence but also the American, the Afghan and "several other outfits" picked up the communication between the ISI sleuths and the attackers.   These claims on the ISI involvement lead you only to one conclusion; in this age of excessive FBI-led electronic, satellite-based surveillance of most cities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the ISI indulged in a very stupid act, executed in such a blatant way that everybody knew about it.   Their only failure, nevertheless, was their inability to prevent the attack. The same is true for the Mumbai carnage. They knew it all, they would have you believe, but could not prevent it. Despite that, the hysteria about Pakistan and the ISI as if India otherwise is an extremely peaceful island.

A close look at the Indian political scene yields some interesting results. The Islamabad-based Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) gave out some interesting studies on the subject.  It says that the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Joint Intelligence Committee, the Directorate of Air Intelligence, the Directorate of Navy Intelligence, the Joint Cipher Bureau, the Directorate of Signals Intelligence and the Defense Image Processing and Analysis Center have all failed. "The most critical element in their collective failure is their overwhelming focus on militant groups based out of Pakistan. So intense has been this focus that they overlooked how India's homegrown militant entities have spread across India's 2,973,190 sq km of land mass. According to South Asia Terrorism Portal, "at least 231 of the India's 608 districts are currently afflicted, at differing intensities, by various insurgent and terrorist movements."
The CRSS says that over the past 5 decades, India has been up against three distinct types of militancy: Left-wing extremist, separatist and religious.

"Left-wing extremist groups that have engaged in terrorist activity include People's Guerilla Army, People's War Group, Moist Communist Center, Communist Party of India-Maoist and Communist Party of India Janashakti. In Assam, there are at least 35 known separatist groups. In Manipur, there's the People's Liberation Army. In Meghalava, there's the People's Liberation Front of Meghalava. Nagaland has at least three known insurgent entities; Punjab has 12, Tripura has 30 and Mizoram has 2. Then there's Arunachal Dragon Force in Arunachal Pradesh."
"As many as 2,765 Indians died in terrorism-related violence during 2006,  while about 1,471 Pakistanis died in terrorism-related violence the same year. Of the 2,765 Indians who lost their lives, 41 percent were killed in Jammu and Kashmir, 27 percent of all victims died because of Left-wing extremism, 23 percent because of insurgencies and 10 percent from militant groups based on religion," the CRSS report said.
  US President George Bush had been warned that al Qaeda was planning but Bush didn't pay much heed. Indonesia's Sukarnoputri was warned but she didn't pay much heed. Manmohan Singh has also been ignoring warnings. America suffered and so did Indonesia and now India.
Now, compare Pakistan's graph of violence with that of India; in the first 11 months of 2008, casualties of terrorist violence in Pakistan already number 6,158, most of them in the Northwestern Frontier Province and the tribal areas i.e. FATA . It is a heavy toll that mindless, falsely-motivated and brain-washed  youngsters are taking on Pakistan.

Who's behind Mumbai attacks, and who are the people piling misery on Pakistan? Is it India's left-wing extremists, separatists or India's homegrown jihadi militants? Are these the TTP, or like-minded outfits, inspired by al Qaeda, who are perpetrating the rein of terror in Pakistan?
The Mumbai attacks certainly  a wake-up call for the global intelligence community for them to rise up to the challenge and focus their collective energies in the right direction, rather than being unifocal. B. Raman, one of India's leading analysts, is of the opinion that a whole lot of India's militancy is "self radicalization, self motivation and self execution."
As far the Indian establishment's attempts – largely aired and echoed through the media - to trace the trail of terror to Pakistan, it is quite understandable from their perspective. But, it certainly, is not logical, nor is it based on an conclusive evidence.
There appear to be two basic flaws in the Indian analysis of the Mumbai carnage; their security establishment essentially rules out the possibility of  home-grown Islamist militants striking alliance with the proponents of other major insurgent groups currently up in arms against the Indian government.

Secondly, the Indian usually tend not to draw a distinction between state-sponsored acts – as have been the case in the past in Kashmir and Afghanistan , and those carried out by individual splinter groups, operating on their own.

The extent of violence witnessed in Mumbai as well as the high casualties Pakistan has suffered this year so far require a more calculated and dispassionate response to the wave of terror that is sweeping the entire region.

Pakistan authorities certainly need to address the Indian concerns; they question  the nexus that had existed between the military establishment and the jihadi groups. That these leaders continue to live in Pakistan, without being questioned or challenged on their avowed missions vis a vis India is an issue Islamabad must address.  The Indian demand for handing over of people like Hafiz Saeed, the head of the proscribed Lashkare Taiba, and Maulana Masood Azhar, the maverick who leads the Jaishe Mohammad, or of Seth Daud Ibrahim, are issues which Pakistani authorities need to come clean on.

As far the Indian claims on the results of interrogations with regards to the Mumbai carnage, these results would sound hollow and devoid of credibility; given the history of acrimony and mistrust between the two countries, and the propensity of the security establishments to " concoct or cook up evidence" against each other, complicates the situation further.

The best course therefore should be to involve other countries – like the USA and Great Britain – in the interrogation process. A multi-national investigation could possibly set aside the usual mistrust of each other, and help both countries to move on to substantive cooperation, rather than saber-rattling and indulgence in the blame-game.

A multi-national investigation process could, perhaps, also pin down Pakistan if any of its institutions had any direct or indirect involvement in the Mumbai terror or similar incidents elsewhere. The presence of foreign investigators – from countries friendly to both – would lend the process credibility and raise its credibility.

But any one-sided investigation or results thereof would remain suspect as long as the Indian authorities restrict the exercise to themselves only. The bilateral history provides ample proof of rejection and suspicion in such instances. And here, if the Indian authorities want to come clean, would do the region and the anti-terror cause  a service by involving other nations. Mere rhetoric and finger-pointing would not take us any where, particularly when Pakistan itself is embroiled in a crisis – both economic and political, essentially arising out of the anti-terror war.ends