Green to amber

Shared outrage followed by renewed animosity characterises the mood in Pakistan after the train bombing.

NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN in Islamabad

THE terrorist attack on the Samjhauta Express unites India and Pakistan for the first time in shared outrage, but from the manner in which the aftermath developed, it is clear that the animosity between the two is on constant simmer and that it can be turned up at a moment's notice.

This was the first time that a terrorist attack in India killed Pakistanis, and that too such a large number. Of the 68 killed, at least 39 were identified as Pakistani nationals. A number of bodies remain unidentified, and it can be assumed that there were several Pakistanis among these too. The first reaction in Pakistan, when the news came in on the morning of February 19, was shock. This was the day before the departure to New Delhi of a large official Pakistani delegation led by Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri for a meeting of the India-Pakistan joint commission.

Almost expecting a cancellation of the meeting, the Pakistani media flooded the Foreign Ministry with calls about whether Kasuri planned to go ahead with it. Kasuri's response was categorical. There was to be no change in his plan to leave for New Delhi the next day, and to cancel the visit would be to hand a victory to those who were trying to derail the peace process with such acts of terrorism.

It sent out a clear, positive message that Pakistan would not allow this incident to become the latest hurdle in the peace process. President Pervez Musharraf's statement was further evidence that the Pakistan leadership was united in the view that this attack was clearly an attempt to derail the peace process and that it should not be allowed to succeed in this purpose. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz also expressed the same sentiment.

But there was no hiding the anger in Pakistan, both among officials and the people, at what was clearly a colossal absence of security for the international train and at the alleged `insensitivity' and `maltreatment' of the survivors of the attack. With emotions running high as the survivors streamed in and relatives brought back the bodies of those who had been killed, the atmosphere quickly turned from one of shared grief into "us vs them".

Leading the charge was none other than Pakistan Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid. He was at the Wagah border to receive the Samjhauta Express on the evening of February 19 as it came in with more than 500 passengers who continued on the journey that they had begun the day before. From the station, Rashid made the dramatic allegation that the carriages of the train had been locked, thus preventing a large number of people who could have escaped the attack unhurt from doing so. He described the bogies as "locked-up cages".

In the days that followed, the Minister repeatedly stated that India was not providing a complete list of the passengers in the two affected carriages, thus preventing the identification of victims. Aziz, too, joined in the recriminations and said India had failed to provide adequate security to the train.

Underlying the tough talk, the feeling of shared vulnerability was evident. While Rashid categorically ruled out discontinuing the train, Pakistan took immediate steps to strengthen security for both the Samjhauta Express and the recently resumed Thar Express, which runs between Khokrapar in Sindh and Munabao in Rajasthan, handing over both to the Pakistan Rangers, the country's border security force. The Thar Express, particularly, is seen as a greater responsibility for Pakistan as it travels a greater distance through Pakistani territory, starting its journey in Karachi and running through Hyderabad before it touches the Pakistani border at Khokrapar. The Samjhauta Express traverses only the short distance from Lahore to the Wagah border.

Very few of the Pakistanis who came back on the first day had a good word for Indian officials. They complained bitterly about the trauma of seeing so many people being burnt alive, trying to escape the fires, and spoke of their desire to be back with their families in Pakistan as quickly as possible. On the other hand, they told journalists, was the "callousness" of the Indian officials in delaying the onward journey of the interrupted Samjhauta Express, which was held up at Attari for several hours. The complaints against Indian officialdom increased as relatives started bringing back their dead and injured over the Wagah border.

Even as Kasuri and his entourage left for India as scheduled on February 20, the National Assembly, Pakistan's lower house of Parliament, adopted a unanimous resolution condemning the Samjhauta attack as an "act of terrorism" and demanding a joint India-Pakistan investigation into it. In the debate that preceded the passing of the resolution, some parliamentarians questioned why Pakistan had not reacted more strongly to the incident that had killed so many of its nationals.

Even though Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khusro Bhaktiar took a noticeably softer line in the Assembly, saying both governments were "doing their best" to tackle the "human tragedy", the Foreign Minister could not be immune to the developments back home. During his three-day stay in New Delhi, he continued to assert that terrorist acts could not derail the peace process - a phrase missing from the National Assembly resolution. The initial demand by Pakistan that India should conduct "thorough" investigations into the attack, share the results with Pakistan and punish the perpetrators, turned into one for "joint investigation", reflecting the parliamentary resolution.

When the demand was turned down by India, the issue became a point of sparring for the two countries, as did the possibility that Indian investigators would need to question the wounded who would soon return home to Pakistan. India wanted an assurance on this, but Pakistan said it would not allow it under any circumstance. The furore over one of the injured passengers, Rana Shaukat, who was being treated at Safdarjang Hospital in New Delhi, demonstrated the unique challenge that this attack has posed for both countries.

Rana lost five children in the attack but survived along with his wife and an infant child. On the day a Pakistani Air Force C-130 was to bring back the wounded, the Pakistan High Commission sounded the alarm that Rana Shaukat, his wife and child were missing from the hospital. The Indian government said the family had been taken to Panipat to identify the remains of the five children. The plane, which was supposed to take off early in the evening left only late at night after what seems to have been an exchange of words between Indian and Pakistani officials over the return of Rana.

For the Pakistani media, he became a cause celebre, with newspapers reporting that Indian authorities had detained him for questioning and that he was "harassed". The newspaper Dawn, which spoke to him in Panipat, said he had been interrogated "exhaustively".Taking up the Pakistan Railway Minister's complaints of non-cooperation against the Indian Railways, the Foreign Ministry said it was "intrigued and frustrated" that it had not yet been given a complete list of passengers on the cross-border train. The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Pakistan was under pressure from relatives of victims who were still not traced. "What we can do for our citizens depends on the kind of cooperation we receive from India - and we really do not know why they are not sharing it with us," she said.

Coupled with the anger was indignation at reports that India was seriously examining the involvement of Islamist militant organisations or Kashmiri extremist groups in the attack. The Foreign Ministry angrily rejected early reports that it could be the work of a group such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammad, and said it was too early for investigators to come to such conclusions. Some newspapers raised the possibility that with most of the passengers on the train being Muslim, both from Pakistan and India, the attack was the work of fanatic Hindu groups.

In all the renewed animosity between the two countries, there was some appreciation for the swiftness with which the Indian government, through its High Commission in Islamabad, agreed to process emergency visas to facilitate travel for the relatives of the Samjhauta Express victims. The High Commission set up a temporary visa camp at Lahore and processed visas almost "on the spot" for about 80 people to cross the Wagah border into India. The camp worked round the clock to issue the visas.

As Kasuri has said, the Samjhauta attack is doubtless a "test case" for the India-Pakistan joint mechanism against terror that came into existence recently and will hold its first meeting in Islamabad on March 6 and 7.