Human rights activists have expressed grief and anguish over the deaths of over 160 people in the dastardly bomb attacks in Mumbai on Tuesday. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Chairperson, Asma Jehangir, Secretary General Iqbal Haider and IA Rehman and many others said that the real target of this vile plot was the entire population of South Asia.
For incidents such as this are manifestly designed to derail the process of peace building between India and Pakistan, foment communal violence and thus undermine the very existence of the two neighbourly states.
They said it was necessary that all parties concerned should go beyond rhetoric and take stringent action against the culprits.
The HRCP leaders expressed the hope that the governments of India and Pakistan would maintain due restraint, the people of India might be unable to avoid attributing the latest attack on the hands that have been taking the lives of innocent people and destabilising Indo-Pak negotiations over the last several years.
"We are convinced that the battle for peace between the people of India and Pakistan is to be fought in the minds of ordinary citizens and actions such as the one witnessed the other day are bound to poison these minds and cause a serious setback to the forces of sanity, tolerance and good neighbourliness," they said.
They said the situation, therefore, poses a challenge to the states of India and Pakistan, as well as to their peoples, and the only appropriate response could be a redoubling of efforts to build peace.
The leaders of India and Pakistan must hold talks at the highest level possible to devise practical strategies for implementing their recent accords to jointly struggle for the eradication of terrorism, the HRCP said.