Religious parties in Pakistan gloated over the shock election defeat of India's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday and linked it to attacks on Indian Muslims.
"It's a reaction to what the BJP did with Muslims in Gujarat," MNA Hafiz Hussain Ahmed of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam told AFP.
He was referring to bloody Hindu-Muslim riots which swept through the western Indian state in 2002 killing some 2,000 people, after a mob set ablaze a train carrying Hindu activists and killed 59 people.
"Indian Muslims can now feel more comfortable with Congress in power," Ahmed said.
"We hope that Sonia Gandhi, being a woman and head of Congress, will not allow genocide of Muslims in general and Kashmiris in particular."
Ahmed said outgoing prime minister and BJP chief Atal Behari Vajpayee was "hostage to hard-line Indian leaders," despite his efforts to initiate peace between India and Pakistan after the nuclear-armed neighbours came close to war in 2002.
The head of Jamaat-i-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, was nonplussed by the surprise result, saying there was little difference between the BJP and its rival Congress.
"The latter (Congress) were equally responsible for the killings of thousands of Kashmiris," he told AFP.
An activist of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), officially outlawed in Pakistan but still operating in Kashmir, said he was "overjoyed" at BJP's defeat.
"God has punished BJP and Vajpayee for what they did to Muslims in Gujarat and Kashmir," he said, asking not to be identified.
"It's so unfortunate that we cannot celebrate BJP's defeat in Pakistan because of the ban (on LeT)".
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