KARACHI, Dec 4: The Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy has urged the governments of Pakistan and India to avoid escalating tension caused by the recent Mumbai attacks and immediately restore the dialogue process to avert the looming threat of war.

Speaking at a joint news conference at the Karachi Press Club on Thursday, members of the PIPFPD Iqbal Haider, Anis Haroon, M.B. Naqvi, retired Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, A.R. Siddiqui, Uzma Noorani and Tasneem Siddiqui said that what was necessary for the two countries was to immediately get back to diplomatic normality and resume their negotiations known as “Composite Dialogue” and to ensure that the various confidence-building measures they had put on the ground succeed.

They said the kind of caveats that might have been inserted into the dialogue process by the bureaucracies of the two countries to keep their control tight must be eased and the purpose for which CBMs had been conceived should be facilitated by improving and enlarging them.

“There has been much talk in India of terror from Pakistan having attacked India in pursuit of communal hatred. It is not something that is going to be of any use or help to most Pakistanis, the government included,” they said, adding that in fact it should be clear to the Indian media and the government that zealots were at war against the state of Pakistan.

“The point is that the actual situation in Pakistan must be realised: there is a war going on between the state of Pakistan and the Taliban-like zealots in various parts of the tribal areas and even in settled districts of the NWFP who threaten the whole region,” they said, adding that “eventuality unfortunately is not impossible and it could come to pass while it would not be of any help or use or benefit to India”.

They observed that the best course of action for the Indian and Pakistani governments, no matter who got elected in India, or what happened in Pakistan, was to cooperate with each other in putting an end to all communal and religious zealotry. Normal friendly cooperation between India and Pakistan would be of benefit to both countries and their peoples.

They further said that it was about time trade and economic development should be in the minds of all with the purpose of development being more humane distribution of incomes and full employment, only then peace was possible internally and externally.

Aurat Foundation leader Anis Haroon said both Pakistan and India could not afford war and it was certainly no solution to problems faced by their peoples. She urged the two countries to exercise tolerance besides restoring the dialogue process.

She said a delegation of the Pakistan-India Forum was expected to visit Delhi ahead of Eidul Azha where it would meet people and speak at a news conference to help remove misgivings and restore the dialogue process between the two countries. In this regard, she further said, the forum would also hold seminars in Islamabad and Lahore after Eid.

Retired justice Nasir Aslam Zahid said the restoration of the dialogue process between Pakistan and India was the need of the hour. He said after consultation with noted legal expert Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, they had decided that a delegation of retired Pakistani judges would visit Delhi and Mumbai.

Iqbal Haider said terrorists were not only enemies of the Indian people, they were also enemies of the Pakistanis. He urged the governments and peoples of Pakistan and India to jointly tackle the phenomenon of terrorism.

He appealed to Indian politicians to avoid using the Mumbai tragedy in the upcoming general elections to achieve their electoral targets.—PPI