A few interpretations of the Mumbai terror attacks are doing the rounds. One of these came from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who shot off a thinly veiled warning to Pakistan on Thursday of costs if it cannot stop cross-border terrorism. And if Pakistan-based terrorists did in fact mastermind the bloodbath in Mumbai, as he implied, then they may have hit the bull’s eye. Whoever has carried out the attacks has dispatched relations between the two countries, after they had shown significant signs of improvement, back to the more familiar square one.

Disruption of India-Pakistan ties at this juncture entails serious fallout in Afghanistan. That’s what one sequence of recent events indicates. It began with US President-elect Barack Obama signalling interest in an early resolution of the Kashmir dispute. An implicit India-Pakistan rapprochement would relieve pressure on Pakistan’s army, which would get a freer hand to meet the challenges posed by the Taliban.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi reflected how far this rapprochement could go to the detriment of extremists such as the Taliban. In his condemnation of the horrific bloodbath in Mumbai, Mr Qureshi, who was in Delhi on Thursday, disclosed that Islamabad wanted to set up a hotline between the intelligence chiefs of the two countries and he had said so to his Indian counterpart. On Tuesday, the home secretaries of the countries had wound up a successful meeting in Islamabad with a somewhat similar agenda. Were those that felt threatened by an India-Pakistan strategy on terrorism watching all this closely? Was the Mumbai massacre needed to drive a wedge between the two? Dr Manmohan Singh’s masked warning to Pakistan indicated he did not see the trap. In a televised address, prompted by relentless opposition criticism in an election year of his alleged softness against terrorism, he declared. “The well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably (had) external linkages”. They were intended to create a sense of panic, by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners.

“We are not prepared to countenance a situation in which the safety and security of our citizens can be violated with impunity by terrorists,” Dr Singh asserted, his voice frail with lack of sleep. But his words were unusually sharp. “We will take up strongly with our neighbours that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them.”

Dr Singh promised to curb the flow of funds to suspect organisations and went on to warn that India would “restrict the entry of suspects into the country”.

Did he mean India had been thus far giving visas to suspects or did he imply a suspension of people-to-people contact with neighbours, possibly as an acceptable cost for the additional security, if that is what he gets?

Dr Singh threatened to use a draconian National Security Act to go “after these individuals and organisations and make sure that every perpetrator, organiser and supporter of terror, whatever his affiliation or religion may be, pays a heavy price for these cowardly and horrific acts against our people.”

That is one immediate fallout of the Mumbai tragedy. At another level the method of the violence can be seen as a combination of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid standoff for the easy endurance displayed by the terrorists and the recent attack on the Marriott Hotel, which underscored sheer brazen precision. Imprints are also discernible of the murderous attack on Kabul’s Serena Hotel followed by the more devastating attack on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan.

The militants’ seizure of Mumbai’s iconic Taj Mahal hotel and another five-star property in the posh Colaba district, the taking of dozens of foreign and domestic hostages with reported focus on American, British and Jewish foreigners, the hijacking of a police car by the armed men, their slow, defiant ride in it and the casual, brutal spraying of bullets into panic-stricken people on the street add a new dimension to the terror that stalks India today. Most TV channels blamed the Lashkar-i-Tayyaba though the group has denied any role. There was mention also of an unheard of group called Deccan Mujahideen as possible perpetrators.

The scale of the terror attack was military-like in its scope, inviting comparisons with an Al Qaeda plot. But military training is not the preserve of Muslim extremists any longer, as the recent arrest of a lieutenant colonel of the Indian army has revealed. Before the Mumbai terror plot unfolded on Wednesday night, Maharashtra’s Anti Terrorist Squad was pursuing solid leads into the involvement of the colonel and several Hindu extremists in bombing incidents eslewhere. Two of the police officers killed in Wednesday’s shootout at the Taj Mahal hotel had been heading the probe into the anti-Muslim Malegaon blasts. The suspects were also being questioned for apparent involvement in the Samjhauta Express bombing, for which Pakistan was initially blamed. That probe may now remain shrouded in mystery.