The militants struck the day Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz met Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh in Kazakhstan. The timing of the attack suggests that the militants’ target was the peace process. They were also aware that the Babri Masjid demolition case was coming up in the Allahabad High Court on July 6. Through the attack they have reminded Pakistani Muslims that the issue is still alive and that they should not be excited about the peace process.

Chief commander of the Jaish in Jammu and Kashmir, Sehrai Baba, told THE WEEK he had nothing to do with the attack though his leader Maulana Masood Azhar is dead against the peace process.

So is Lashkar chief Hafiz Muhammed Saeed. He openly opposed the bus service between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar and declared that "we must fight to liberate Junagarh and Hyderabad from the evil clutches of Hindu Brahmins". Unlike Azhar, Saeed’s movements are not restricted. His offices in Lahore, Karachi, Quetta and Islamabad work freely under the name of a relief organisation—Dara-e-Khidmat-e-Khalaq.

"The attack was a reaction to the religious terrorism unleashed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal against the Muslims of India," Lashkar spokesman Yahya Mujahid told THE WEEK. For about 10 minutes, Mujahid then tried to explain the "reasons" behind the attack to this correspondent. On whether he supported the attack, he said: "It is India’s internal problem, the root cause of which is very clear. If Hindus demolish mosques and slaughter Muslims in Gujarat, they must face these kinds of attacks."

Interestingly, Lt-Gen. Safdar Hussain of the Pakistan army said on July 6 that ‘Indian agents’ are infiltrating into Pakistan from Afghanistan and claimed to have arrested six of them. In other words, there is a growing danger that both India and Pakistan may play into the hands of the extremists by starting a new blame game which could lead to more dangerous attacks, especially in Kashmir, in the coming weeks.

Hamid Mir is bureau chief of Geo TV.