NEW DELHI, 2 November 2005 — India yesterday responded cautiously to Pakistan’s suggestion that the two countries demilitarize disputed Kashmir to speed up relief efforts after last month’s quake which claimed 58,000 lives, saying the step could not be taken unilaterally.

“It (the demilitarization) can’t be done unilaterally,” said Foreign Minister Natwar Singh. “After all, they (Pakistan) are in occupation of our areas,” he said.

Natwar Singh was responding to Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s remarks to Arab News at the weekend in which he said he was “for demilitarization (in Kashmir).

“If they (India) agree to that, we will too,” Musharraf told Arab News Editor in Chief Khaled Almaeena in an exclusive interview.

The minister made it clear that he has to study the Pakistan president’s comments and the context in which they were made before offering any definite views.

“Over-verbalizing doesn’t help. Every second day there is a statement from that side,” he added. In other words, India is willing to consider the proposal provided Pakistan also displays the same enthusiasm to actually implement it.

India and Pakistan signed a deal early Sunday to open five crossings on the Line of Control (LOC) from Nov. 7 to aid quake survivors.

It came after Musharraf proposed the opening of the heavily militarized LOC around a week and a half after the Oct. 8 quake.

Police Unearth Vital Clues

Witness descriptions of an unshaven man who left a bomb on a bus, two sports bags and a timing device have provided vital leads in the hunt for those behind the serial blasts in New Delhi which killed 62.

Police were hunting for the casually-dressed man in his 20s, who witnesses said slipped off a bus after leaving a bag which exploded minutes later in the Okhla industrial area.

A rough sketch of the suspected bomber has been prepared with the help of a passenger who sat next to him and interacted with him briefly. All passengers on the bus were saved because the bus driver threw out the abandoned bag.

Police said bags used in the two others blasts — in the Sarojini Nagar and Paharganj markets — on Saturday looked similar and they were questioning shopkeepers with the hope of identifying the purchasers.

Investigators also said 60-minute timer devices were used and traces of research developed explosive (RDX) have been found in the bomb devices, which can usually be assembled only by teams of experts.

“It looks like the terrorist who used these devices must have trained for months before the attack with a proper recce of the target areas,” a senior police official told The Asian Age newspaper.

Karnal Singh, the head of New Delhi’s anti-terrorism unit, said the attacks were probably coordinated by a single organization, but were executed by different units of the group.

“They targeted food stalls at both Paharganj and Sarojini Nagar markets as they are generally crowded with women and children. It was a maximum damage target,” he said.

A police source quoted in the media said a cigarette vendor at Paharganj heard one of the suspected attackers directing the driver of a three-wheeler autorickshaw, from which he had just alighted, to continue to a crowded food stall and wait for him.

Police believe the bag the man left in the autorickshaw contained the bomb which exploded shortly afterward.

They suspect the man then slipped away to the nearby railway station and boarded a train. A portrait of the man was being prepared with the help of the vendor’s description.

Investigators are poring through railway reservation charts of all trains leaving New Delhi around the time of the blast.

Police have said they are questioning more than two dozen people in connection with the attacks, launching their biggest manhunt ever.

Police were also scanning records of nearly two million mobile phone calls in the three areas targeted by the attackers to try to track down calls they might have made to each other to coordinate the blasts.

— Additional input from AFP