India may freeze peace process with Pak

(Press TV) -- India is to consider suspending a 2004 peace process with Pakistan following the attacks on Mumbai that killed almost 200 people.

"There is a view in the government that India should suspend the peace process and composite dialogue to show that it is not going to take lightly the deadly carnage in Mumbai," Press Trust of Indiaquoted unnamed senior officials as saying.

The security officials told PTI that a series of high-level meetings at political and official levels will be taking place in the coming few days to decide what to do.

Earlier Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met top defense and intelligence officials in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks and sought suggestions for a security strategy to prevent such attacks in the future.

India also decided to prepare a 'white paper' on Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and terrorist groups that it says are based in Pakistan. Sources said the paper would be circulated to world leaders as early as next week.

New Delhi emphasized on Sunday it had proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai attacks, while officials in Islamabad said it would move troops to the Indian border if tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals spilled over.

The Mumbai attackers are said to have come to the city by sea from the Pakistani port of Karachi, according to Indian security officials. They have said they were from the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group that has been blamed for previous attacks in India.

This is while the militant group Lashkar-i-Tayyiba, which is fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, has denied any involvement in the deadly attacks.

Pakistan's president, premier and other top officials have condemned the attacks and have promised full cooperation in fighting terrorism. The Mumbai terror attacks threaten to chill improving ties between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

The two neighbors, who have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947, have been involved in a slow-moving peace process ever since 2004.