India Sees New Reason to Distrust Pakistan

Many Indian officials, who have long accused Pakistan of providing shelter to terrorist groups, felt vindicated by the discovery of Bin Laden in the town of Abbottabad, an hour’s drive north of the capital and home to a large military base.

Now these officials are repeating their demands that the Pakistani government arrest and prosecute all the perpetrators of the November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, an assault carried out by militants trained in Pakistan who killed more than 160 people.

“We believe that the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attack, including the controllers and handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan,” Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in a statement on Monday.

In recent months, India and Pakistan have made modest progress in reviving a relationship that has been largely frozen since the Mumbai attacks. In February, the foreign secretaries of both nations met on the sidelines of a regional conference in Bhutan.

Last month, Mr. Singh sat with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan during a cricket match between the countries. Mr. Singh had also been considering a possible visit to Pakistan later this year.

“Whether he will go now remains to be seen,” said Salman Haidar, a former Indian foreign secretary. “Certainly, this doesn’t help him.”

India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed neighbors that have fought three wars and continue to have a litany of disputes, including deep disagreement over the fate of Kashmir. India’s political establishment is deeply distrustful of Pakistan, especially the Pakistani military, and Mr. Singh has been criticized at home for his persistent efforts to engage Pakistan.

Gopalapuram Parthasarathy, a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, said Bin Laden’s location inside Pakistan vindicated the Indian belief that Pakistani military and intelligence officials are knowingly sheltering terrorists.

“It is now obvious that at least from 2005, he has been living comfortably in the middle of a Pakistani garrison town, surrounded by the Pakistani military,” said Mr. Parthasarathy, who has been critical of Mr. Singh. “Nobody would believe that the Pakistan military would not have known he was there.”

Similar sentiments were common in India’s news media on Tuesday, and some analysts speculated that domestic pressure would mount on the prime minister to take a harder line on Pakistan.

In his own short statement, Mr. Singh refrained from taking the same tough stance against Pakistan as that of his home minister. He welcomed Bin Laden’s death as “a significant step forward” and called on Pakistan to take steps against groups that harmed innocent civilians.

Mr. Haidar, who has supported the efforts at dialogue, said of Mr. Singh, “He hasn’t really rubbed this in their faces, the fact that they have been caught with their pants down.”

Further, Mr. Haidar said: “My own personal view is we are going too slow and we needed a jolt. Unfortunately, the jolt has come in the opposite direction. It makes life more difficult for Dr. Manmohan Singh.”

He added, “But I don’t think we’re at a full stop.”