Pakistan’s admission that the gunman captured alive in the Mumbai attacks was one of its nationals has not come a day too soon. It is a belated but welcome development in a situation that remains fraught, and came hours after India’s Defence Minister lent his voice to warnings of ‘all options’ to tackle the terrorist menace emanating from inside Pakistan. Even so, when Islamabad finally acknowledged a fact that had been reported in its own media, it ruined things by firing its National Security Adviser, apparently for being the first senior official to hint that the man, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, was indeed a Pakistani. Against growing evidence gathered by Indian, American and British investigators, Islamabad’s denials have not helped to calm the situation. If anything, it has so upset the Indians that in recent weeks they have moved from blaming ‘elements’ in Pakistan for the attacks, to accusing the state directly. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this week accused Islamabad of official involvement in terrorism, a charge it denied.

Islamabad’s reluctance to acknowledge Kasab’s Pakistani nationality is perhaps due to the fact it feared this would open the door for India to finger it for every future attack. But it needs to show good faith by acting speedily and convincingly against the Mumbai masterminds. It also must crack down on the militant groups that still operate there. Another outrage similar to Mumbai and India’s restraint, already brittle, may snap. As it is, the global propaganda effort being mounted has been reminiscent of the groundwork India laid in 1971 before it moved decisively against East Pakistan, which brought Bangladesh into being.

But while India has every reason to be outraged over the Mumbai incident, it should also begin to wind down the rhetoric. Dr Singh’s taunt that Pakistan was a ‘very fragile’ state is a truism that India should examine for its implications on itself. Should the Pakistani state fracture further, it would only bring a lasting headache for its larger neighbour as all sorts of militant groups run amok. It will also transfer the jihadist war from the Afghan border to the frontier with India. Besides, even as it has the moral high ground, India cannot forget its own past involvement with ‘non-state actors’. Sri Lanka’s civil war owes in part to the support India extended to Tamil separatist groups in the 1980s. Also, by his own admission, through his years of leading the insurgency that toppled the monarchy, Nepal’s Maoist leader Prachanda lived mostly in a New Delhi suburb. Time, then, for India to get real and consider America’s offer to participate in a three-way joint probe into the Mumbai attacks.