The Indian accusation that the Bombay carnage was executed by elements from Pakistan who had intruded into that country via Indian ocean has both amused and shocked the Pakistanis for whom acts of terrorism are more or less part of the daily diet. The Pakistanis are shocked and aggrieved because terror hardened as they are, they are very well aware of the tragic implications of the pogrom and do not want it happening to others what is happening to them. At the same time they were amused by the flimsy tail, which the Indian media had concocted and their government had endorsed even though reluctantly, about the terrorists sailing via Karachi to Mumbai sea-lane for two days but remaining undetected till they started blasting India's fifteen million strong financial centre. The coastline is somewhat longish, but then so is India's naval capability to guard that coast. India has about the largest navy in the region and it is armed to teeth. The Indian navy boasts of nuclear powered subs, state of the art men of war and carriers with modern facilities. These men of war constantly monitor the traffic from Karachi to Mumbai. The deployment is so perfect that not even a sparrow flying on the Karachi-Mumbai sea-lane could pass unchecked. Pakistanis were therefore amused by the theory that the terrorists arrived Mumbai from Karachi by boat and reached their targets uninterrupted by security agencies. Anyone, even with elementary knowledge of India's resourcefulness, would consider the Delhi's version of the event as highly fictionalised. Can the Indians do better? Surely they are capable of then why are they playing games? This is perhaps crux of the problem. Ever since independence India has been putting up two faces. One for Pakistan and one for rest of the world. Its demeanour as regards Pakistan has been very unreasonable. Be it division of assets at the time of partition or the Indus Basin irrigation water dispute and the Kashmir conflict, India has acted most irresponsibly towards Pakistan. At the some time, her stand on many international disputes has been reasonable and acceptable from moral standpoint. Thus on development like Mumbai the world is likely to go by the Indian version of event irrespective of what Pakistani say and what the facts speak. Our recounting of the history, which seeks to expose the treacherous side of Indian character, therefore will probably be ignored. With this background one wonders what will India achieve by accusing Pakistan of Mumbai terrorist act? The basic Indian policy has been to paint Pakistan as a terrorist state, which should be eliminated or at least weakened to the point that it treads on the heels of India. Towards that end India has missed no opportunity. Soon after 9/11 when the term terrorism was popularised by President Bush, India wasted no time in jumping into the arena to join him and direct part of the campaign against Kashmiris. More than five decades old Kashmiri struggle for liberation, once also supported by the Americans, was turned into a terrorist activity. Pakistan went around from pillar to post pleading that let there be a definition of freedom struggle, which, it argued, was entirely different from terrorism. To the misfortune of those who like Kashmiris are fighting for freedom India, and not Pakistan, prevailed in making US and its friends accept Kashmiris as terrorists. For India the terrorist problem was resolved. From now on every terrorist act in India will be attributed to Pakistan. Since Pakistan had, on behest of the United States, gone to war with Al-Qaeda, action and reaction of that operation drew a lot of attention in the US and some other western countries. From distance Pakistan began to look like a terrorist infested state. Our allies in the West did precious little to dispel this impression. On the contrary they complained that Pakistan was not doing enough to destroy the terrorists. Without counting the Pakistani causalities in the conflict western spokesmen continued to urge this country to "do more". It was implied as if Pakistan was in sympathy with the terrorists. Pakistani travellers in the western countries, particularly US and UK found that instead of being welcomed as friends and comrades fighting partly their war, they were looked upon as friends of the terrorists. This indeed is a great pity. In the meantime India continued to exploit the unfriendly attitude of the West towards Pakistan as much as it could. Every terrorist type explosion in India was projected as work of Pakistan, every time no proof was offered, and every time a sympathetic response from the West arrived to console India. Incidents more serious than Mumbai had happened in Pakistan but no Secretary of State had ever arrived to condole. More serious India becomes in accusing Pakistan on Mumbai, more dumb "script" writers begin to look. One does not has to be an FBI supper star to discover that knowledge of targets and their surroundings has got to be the work of well informed Mumbai city boys or extensively trained outsiders with experience of Mumbai streets. Definitely not the boat riders from Karachi. This view is endorsed by Christine Fair, a South Asia affairs analyst for US think-tank, Rand Corporation. In her interview with Washington Post November 28 Ms Fair said, "The attacks were perhaps carried out by indigenous Indians militants with some outside support. It is almost unimaginable....This could have been done entirely by outside militants without Indian involvement; implications are very dangerous. This is a major domestic political challenge for India." The writer is a freelance columnist