Since the terrorist attacks on the Indian parliament seven years ago, there has been a familiar pattern in India-Pakistan relations: after each terrorist attack in India, Indian politicians and the more hawkish elements in the Indian media point fingers at Pakistan. Threats of war are exchanged as normal diplomacy is suspended and talks on bilateral issues frozen.What agonises Pakistanis most is the haste with which Indian leaders accuse Pakistan of involvement in terrorist attacks. In quite a few cases, when blame was placed on Pakistan, careful investigations by Indian authorities found the culprits from their own fold. It has now been established, for example, that the Samjhota Express attack involved a serving colonel of the Indian Army.Yes, terrorists from Pakistan have attacked Indian targets in the past, and sadly they may do so again. The question that both India and Pakistan need to examine very closely is that terrorists, be they from Hindu or Muslim extremist groups, are not friends of our peoples. They are our common enemies. This realisation can be the foundation on which to build up cooperation.But this is not what the Indian side has done so far. After every terrorist attack, it has blamed Pakistan and its intelligence agencies. The troubling question is why Indian authorities cannot wait for just 48 hours — to properly investigate events, even involve Pakistani authorities in the process — before issuing statements. If they don’t trust Pakistan, constitute an international commission with a neutral third party to investigate and then issue statements.Even before the fight between the terrorists and Indian security forces was over, the Indian media had concluded that the terrorists had come from Pakistan and that they were talking to each other in Punjabi with a thick Hindi accent. Maybe it is true, but can we please wait for the investigators’ verdict before making such pronouncements?The ‘evidence’ produced by the Indian media within hours was flimsy at best: people on both sides of the border speak Punjabi, and in more than one accent. Hindi, too, is spoken in as many accents as there are ethnic groups in India, just like Urdu in Pakistan.It will not help the peace process if India regularly accuses Pakistan of involvement in terrorist acts when there are extremists in both countries that would like to keep them locked in conflict.The terrorists, be they from Pakistan or from other countries, including India, have an obvious agenda: to de-rail the Indo-Pak peace process. If we judge the developments over the last few days, particularly the hysteria gripping the Indian media, the terrorists have succeeded in this objective.Unfortunately, Indian leaders followed the tone set by the media without giving much thought to the implications of their statements. Even the careful and intelligent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh didn’t speak in his usual measured language. Within hours of the attacks, he addressed the nation, clearly stating that the roots of terrorism were in ‘foreign lands’. No state, least of all India, can say with certainty that there are no indigenous terror groups of various backgrounds in its territory.Perhaps it made better political sense for the Indian prime minister to hit out at Pakistan without naming it; given that the media was not mincing its words about the origin of the Mumbai attackers, ‘foreign lands’ meant Pakistan. The political cost of not pulling punches at Pakistan would be great in an event of such magnitude.The main issue is not the incompetence of security agencies when they fail to prevent such attacks. India is too big a country and too complex a society. The main issue is in fact the nature of our common enemy, the terrorists, and its capacity to commit horrific attacks at will.Terrorism poses a new and very difficult challenge to the national security of both India and Pakistan. Pakistan too has been the target of all types of terrorists, local and foreign. The damage to the Pakistani economy and society is incalculable, without an end in sight.The challenge now is to fight this menace. National resources and efforts, no matter how massive, would be inadequate to meet the challenge of transnational terrorism. The war on terror requires international cooperation, more meaningful and institutionalised than has been forthcoming.An even bigger challenge is for India and Pakistan to cooperate with each other in fighting terrorism. It is not going to be easy given the present climate of distrust.While fighting the war on terror, it is equally important to look at the social, political and economic environment that creates the extremist mindset. We can no longer avoid addressing the social roots of conflict in South Asia, and must address issues of ethnicity, communalism, disenfranchisement of minorities and unrestrained use of state force against those demanding their rights. Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk