Govt backtracks on SMSs, not to raise issue with Pakistan
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Tehran, August 31 2012: India is unlikely to raise the issue of inflammatory SMSs, which home secretary R K Singh had said originated in Pakistan, with Pakistani president Asif Zardari.

The reason: no provocative SMS actually originated in Pakistan, said official sources.

This is a clear shift from the government's earlier stand that some of the SMSs had originated in Pakistan.

A meeting between PM Manmohan Singh and Zardari is possible - though not confirmed - on the sidelines of the NAM summit here on Thursday.

The government is indicating that the home secretary spoke out of turn and inaccurately.

Some amount of backtracking is under way.

Pakistan has pooh-poohed the Indian allegations and asked for proof.

Officials said, some of the web pages showing morphed pictures had indeed started in Pakistan - by the government's initial reckoning, they were between 26% and 28% of the objectionable content trawled by official agencies.

Some of these pictures were found in the text messages that did the rounds before the panic exodus of northeasterners begun from various Indian cities.

But the government says there is still no confirmation that this was a single, directed conspiracy or opportunism by nasty elements.

It could also have been picked up by some Indians and transmitted via SMSs, they said.

Therefore, officials said, it would be folly to pin it on Pakistan.

Instead, India may be putting in some security filters to screen web content.

Officials also said the government has constituted a body to look into both the violence that was seen in Mumbai's Azad Maidan and the panic flight of northeasterners from Pune and Bangalore.

The events, they said, laid bare a huge vulnerability in India's internal security apparatus.

Some filters are already being put in place to screen web content that may incite communal violence.

"These are a new phenomenon.

We are seeing a new lethal combination of several factors - aspirations, ethnicities, identity politics and religion - as being the trigger factors.

The CBI had a mandate to look for not only the people who were transmitting these messages but also the intent behind the actions, and whether this was part of a larger conspiracy" .

But because the government is still struggling to deal with the problem, there is a strong possibility that this may happen again.

The jury is still out on whether this constitutes a new form of terrorism against India.

Sources added that terrorism of this kind cannot be solved by talks with Pakistan.

"We too have to take certain steps," officials added.

Pakistan is trying to construct "alternate realities" on the 26/11 attacks, said official sources.

Responding to Pakistan equating the Mumbai attacks with the attack on the Samjhauta Express, officials said in the former, it has been proved that the attackers came from Pakistan, the conspiracy goes not only into extremist groups inside Pakistan but even into the official hierarchy.

On Samjhauta, sources said, India has followed the trail of evidence to prosecution of the accused.

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