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ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - PAKISTANI press on Friday urged India to stop blaming its neighbour as it gave prominent coverage of the coordinated terrorist attacks in India's financial capital, Mumbai.
The reports were responding to Indian military allegations that attackers came from Pakistan, as well as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Thursday television address which stated the planners were based "outside the country" and warned against "neighbours" providing a haven to anti-India militants.
Local English-language daily The News led with the headline: "India gives Pakistan a dirty look."
"Indian intelligence, under fire for failing to pick up on the threat, is anxious to lay blame elsewhere," the newspaper said.
An editorial in the Daily Times newspaper said the televised remarks by India's premier seemed "to be an attempt by Dr. Singh to pre-empt criticism from the Hindu right wing".
"Ongoing investigations into some (past) terrorist attacks that were alternately blamed on Indian Muslims and Pakistan have shown that they were actually carried out by a Hindu terrorist network," the editorial said.
Pakistani newspapers universally condemned the violence in Mumbai, in which some 130 people have died, and urged Pakistan and India to work together to combat terrorism.
"Without apportioning blame on each other, they (Pakistan and India) should cooperate in the investigations to make them productive," Pakistan's influential English-language daily Dawn newspaper said.
"Although one can understand the anger and concern which is widely felt, one would still advise the exercise of constraint in this hour of crisis," it added.
'There is need for confidence building between the two countries." Pakistan's government has deplored the Mumbai attacks and denied any role in the plot which could unhinge recent efforts to reach a peace agreement between the two countries over the disputed area of Kashmir.
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