The hand of some of the groups opposed to President Pervez Musharraf's peace process with India cannot be rule out in the blasts on the Samjhauta Express, a Pakistan daily said on Wednesday, countering the view that Hindu extremists might be behind the blasts.
The Nation had on Tuesday said Hindu extremists might be involved in the blasts. It had also warned India against blaming 'jehadi' outfits without proof.
Countering this view, The Daily Times said in an editorial that the Indo-Pak peace process has been initiated at the cost of the jihad being waged by our religious warriors.
'Some opposition politicians and the jihadi elements have openly accused Musharraf of having betrayed the Kashmir cause by trying to normalise relations with India. The culprits can be narrowed down further.
'It could be someone who hates Musharraf more than he loves fellow Muslims,' it said.
'Let us keep our fingers crossed and pray it is not a Pakistan-linked terrorist organisation that has killed people going to India to meet their relatives. And let us pray that better measures are taken to secure the cross-border trains plying from Punjab and Sindh,' it said.
'India has lately been victim of sabotage and terrorism, but the trend is more associated with Pakistan than with India. Just as the Indians accuse some Lashkar or the other every time there is a blast in India, we used to accuse India whenever there was an explosion on our side, until, of course, our noses were rubbed in the evidence that it was our own jihadis who were doing it,' the newspaper said.
The newspaper said a look at the pattern of travel on the special train suggested that more Pakistani families travelled on it India than those of Indian Muslims to Pakistan.
'One can therefore assume that whoever sabotaged the train knew that only Muslims would die and most of them would be Pakistanis. Does that mean that this dastardly act could not have been perpetrated by Muslims? No, it doesn't.
'On the contrary, in fact, on recent record, one is almost reluctant to accuse anyone but Muslim terrorists for this act,' it said.
'The fact that 26 men, 14 women and 13 children died in the blast, gives no clue because the jihad of our day doesn't bother about what kind of collateral damage it does,' it said.
'Quite understandably the Indians have lost no time in linking the blast with the explosions in Mumbai last year in July that killed 186, mostly Hindu citizens. Obviously, the Indian railways minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who made the accusation, did not note that the passengers killed on Monday were mostly Muslims,' it said.