India denounced the Taliban as a "danger to humanity" days after Pakistan struck a deal with militants allowing Sharia Law in Swat region. When asked to comment late Tuesday on Islamabad's pact with pro-Taliban militants, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee insisted the Taliban was nothing short of a "terrorist organisation".
"Taliban believes in nothing but destruction and violence. In my assessment, Taliban is a danger to humanity and civilisation," he said. The controversial accord followed talks between ministers in NWFP and a local militant leader, Soofi Mohammad, on formalising the implementation of Islamic law. The prominent business daily the Economic Times, titled its commentary "Faustian bargain" and slammed the deal as "nothing short of a pact with the devil".
The Business Standard expressed similar views saying that "the battle for the soul of Pakistan" had begun. "Will it be a modern nation-state of the kind that the world would wish or is it going to slip into an [...] from which nothing will emerge but trouble for neighbours as well as distant powers?" it asked in its editorial. "The trend of recent events suggests the bleaker outcome - starting with the killing of Benazir Bhutto.
"Underlying all this is the army's perception of Pakistan's interests vis-à-vis its neighbours, and its use of the Taliban as a weapon that can be used to regain strategic depth in Afghanistan and to attack targets in India," it warned.