Why India is not turning screws on Pakistan

NO BLAME GAME: The focus of the PM's meet will be on how to insulate the peace process.

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Colombo: When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets Pakistan Prime Minister, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani for the very first time, he will be giving his Pakistani counterpart the benefit of doubt on two scores - terrorism and ceasefire violations.

India's Prime Minister, according to highly placed sources, has been told of the "outside inspiration" for the Ahmedabad and Bangalore bombings, but Dr Singh will not blame Pakistan for the recent carnage because it's still early days in the investigation process.

And even when the PM does pin Mr Gilani down on the ISI hand in the Kabul embassy bombing, sources say there will be no blame game because Delhi, like Washington, is convinced that Prime Minister Gilani is struggling to reign in rogue elements within Paksitan's intelligence agency.

Top level sources told CNN-IBN that this the Pakistan government's stand: "We draw a distinction between rogue elements in agencies and the Government of Pakistan."

The recent violations of the ceasefire along the Line of Control will also be underplayed in the words of a senior official and that perhaps explains why the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi sounded so positive when he said, "LoC ceasefire is most important as are the Confidence Building Measures and we shall try and sort out these things when the Prime Ministers meet on Saturday."

Clearly, India is determined not to be provoked into a military misadventure by the Pakistani army and will instead treat Saturday's meeting as an opportunity to discuss how to manage an increasingly complex relationship.

Ideally, Dr Manmohan Singh would have liked to discuss with PM Gilani, ways to fast forward the peace process. Now when they meet on Saturday, the focus will be on how to insulate the peace process from the contradictions emerging from different power centres within Pakistan.

(With inputs from Naveen Bansal)