Regional stability the loser

Pakistan's claims not to have been involved in the recent hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet are becoming increasingly tenuous.

Islamabad claims it will arrest those involved if they can be identified within its borders. Yet it has made no attempt to stop a militant Kashmiri cleric, whom the hijackers forced New Delhi to release, from delivering an inflammatory speech outside a Karachi mosque.

Maulana Masood Azhar urged 10,000 followers to destroy India and, for good measure, the United States as well. That goes well beyond the legitimate boundaries of freedom of speech. In most countries, such fiery rhetoric to a mass gathering would bring charges of incitement to violence.

It certainly does General Pervaiz Musharraf's isolated military regime no good to turn a blind eye nor to improbably accuse India of engineering the hijacking in order to discredit Pakistan.

That may have been the effect of recent events. But to suggest that New Delhi deliberately masterminded the abduction of its citizens for political purposes only casts doubt on the credibility of Islamabad's other assertions.

Pakistan's claims of non-involvement are also undermined by evidence that the hijackers, after releasing their hostages, took refuge in Pakistan. Islamabad predictably seeks to pass the buck by accusing India of refusing to release the information necessary to identify the hijackers.

Amid the war of words, the real loser is regional stability. Whatever the truth behind the hijacking, Islamabad is only making life more difficult for itself. And everyone on the sub-continent is the loser as a result.

-- The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong