Pak should stop double standards, says Pranab

Two days before Musharraf visits India, Pranab said Islamabad should give up its double standards on terrorism.

Two days before Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf visits India, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said Islamabad should give up its double standards on terrorism.

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"On the one hand, Pakistan was actively involved with the US in the war against terror and on the other it continued to sponsor terrorism from its territory in Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

"They should get over these double standards," Mukherjee said, delivering the VN Tewari Memorial Oration at Panjab University.

Though infiltration of trained terrorists across the Line of Control (LoC) into Kashmir had come down, several terrorists were waiting along the ceasefire line to cross into India.

Mukherjee pointed out the infrastructure supporting the terrorists on the other side of the LoC was still intact.

"Their training network still exists and Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) is doing everything possible to create trouble in Jammu and Kashmir.

"Special training is being given to terrorists to attack Indian forces by providing them with models of security camps," he said.

Speaking on "Peace perspectives in South Asia and Southeast Asia", Mukherjee made it clear that developing good relations with neighbours did not mean that India would compromise on its territory.

"We will not secede even an inch of our land to anyone," he asserted.

Mukherjee said India and Pakistan were responsible nuclear powers and need to act maturely to allay the world community's fears that South Asia had become a nuclear flashpoint.

But Pakistan's stand on keeping the nuclear first use option open did not send a good signal to other countries, he remarked. He also asserted India's defence build-up was not Pakistan-centric and was more in line with the country's emergence as a regional power.

With three nuclear states - India, China and Pakistan - in South Asia, there was a need for "collective self defence", he said. "Such a thing worked quite well in Europe during the Cold War years."

To become a world power, India needed to tackle challenges in its neighbourhood maturely. "If these continue, India will not emerge as a leading power. Howsoever, frustrating it might be, India will have to tackle these," Mukherjee said.

The growing economy and New Delhi's trade agreements would give the country the impetus to emerge as a stronger country.

Mukherjee said VN Tewari, in whose memory the event was held, never gave up on his convictions despite threats from Sikh terrorists. Tewari - a faculty member at Panjab University and a Rajya Sabha member - was shot dead by terrorists here in 1982.