SRINAGAR/ISLAMABAD, 29 August 2003 — India’s deputy prime minister said yesterday that car bombings in Bombay and a spate of attacks in Indian Kashmir could hurt a peace process with Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mian Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri called the remarks by Lal Krishna Advani “very unfortunate”.

Indian police have blamed an outlawed Indian students’ group and a banned Pakistan-based Kashmiri group for the twin blasts in Bombay on Monday which killed 65 people.

They also blamed the same militant organization, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, for an attack on Wednesday in Kashmir’s main city Srinagar, which culminated in an overnight gunbattle in which five died, including two militants.

Speaking in Srinagar, Advani did not blame Pakistan directly for the attacks, but said these would nonetheless hurt the peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

“I am sure our neighbor would be conscious of the fact that happenings of the kind that happened yesterday here or in Bombay two days back do affect the whole process adversely,” he told a news conference.

Asked at a news conference in Islamabad about Advani’s comments, Kasuri replied: “If he has made a statement like that, then it is a very unfortunate statement. This knee-jerk reaction is not conducive to the kind of relationship we are working for.

“We are trying to sustain and step up the process of engagement we have started with India.”

The two nations came close to war last year over Indian claims, denied by Islamabad, that Pakistan is stoking Kashmiri separatist militancy.

They began a tentative peace process in April, restoring diplomatic ties and resuming bus links.

About the talks for restoring air links, Kasuri expressed disappointment. “I would have wanted a decision to be taken and we were prepared for it, but the government of India said: ‘We need more time’,” he said. “We want to encourage people-to-people contact.”

Air links were suspended and overflights banned after an attack on India’s Parliament in 2001 which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants. Islamabad denied involvement

Advani did not go into details on how the peace process could be affected. But in an interview published yesterday in an Australian newspaper, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha revived India’s traditional anti-Pakistan rhetoric which has been missing or muted during the thaw of the last few months.

Calling Pakistan “the epicenter of international terrorism”, he said almost all attacks in India had links leading into its neighbor.

Earlier yesterday, Indian troops killed two militants in a hotel in Srinagar after an overnight gunbattle which coincided with the arrival of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Three other people including a former state legislator died in the shootout, about five kilometers from the building where Vajpayee and state chief ministers were holding a meeting meant to highlight a return to normality in Indian Kashmir. Police did not say how they had identified the militants as members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The national conference called by Vajpayee wrapped up yesterday with agreement that central government will only interfere in state administrations as a “last resort”, a minister said.

“The conference came to an end with the participants agreeing that Article 356 should be used as a measure of last resort,” said India’s Law and Justice Minister Arun Jaitley as the meeting ended.

Article 356 of the Indian constitution authorizes New Delhi to dismiss any state government at short notice.

In Bombay, the founder of Bombay’s ruling far-right Hindu party called for India to unleash “terrorism” on rival Pakistan yesterday to avenge car bombings in the city.

Bal Thackeray, whose Shiv Sena party shares power in Bombay with the BJP of Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee had no doubt Islamabad was responsible.

Thackeray called for India to employ guerrillas and arm citizens to create a “bigger monster” to fight Pakistan.

“Terrorism is growing today from a craze aimed at making the whole world Islamic. To counter this, a bigger terrorism is needed,” Thackeray said in his party mouthpiece Samna, which means “Confrontation.”

“Terrorism will not die just by creating stringent laws. It has to be countered by arming common people also. That is also one way of creating a bigger monster that crushes the current form of terrorism.”