With anti-India talk shows being beamed regularly on Pakistani channels, anti-India blogs clocking hits in cyberspace and open letters to Indians getting several columns in newspapers, a newly formed Pakistani web group to condemn the Mumbai attacks has come as a breath of fresh air.
"All Pakistanis condemn Mumbai attacks," a group on social networking website Facebook, has already registered 1,803 members from across the globe to counter an earlier group called "India stop blaming Pakistan for terror in India", which at last count had 952 members.
Muhammad Riaz, a 30-something blogger, quoted a surah (verse) from the Quran to condemn the attacks "if anyone slew a person, unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land, it would be as if he slew the whole humanity and if anyone saved a life it would be as if he saved the whole of the humanity."
Another Facebooker, Farrukh Mehboob Khan, wondered why Pakistan could not have shown a more visibly sympathetic response to the Mumbai massacres?
"Why do we have to be so aggressive all the time? Why couldn't we send (the Inter-Services Intelligence chief) if India had requested for his presence in the investigations? We should have extended all possible cooperation in this regard if we have no skeletons in the cupboard.
{{/usCountry}}"Why do we have to be so aggressive all the time? Why couldn't we send (the Inter-Services Intelligence chief) if India had requested for his presence in the investigations? We should have extended all possible cooperation in this regard if we have no skeletons in the cupboard.
{{/usCountry}}"If my reports about the current (ISI chief) are correct, he is a highly capable officer who should have been able to hold his ground. We should have sent a team of experts to help him and the Indians in their investigation.
"But no, we had to act like the protagonist of a cheap Punjabi movie who thunders and makes inexplicable gestures towards the enemy," Khan wrote.