Pakistan called for the fight against terrorism to be intensified today as terrorist attacks in Bombay threaten to escalate tension between the two South Asian nations.

Amid revelations that a Pakistani boat was being searched off the Bombay coastline, President Asif Ali Zardari emphatically condemned the attacks saying they were a cowardly act.

Speaking on the phone to Sonia Gandhi, president of the ruling Indian Congress Party, Mr Zardari said there was a greater need for a joint India-Pakistan struggle against terrorism, adding that Pakistan stood with the people of India.

Pakistan, which has often been accused by India of being complicit in terror strikes on its soil, has also offered to take part in a joint investigation into the Bombay attacks. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who was in New Delhi for talks on the countries' slow-moving peace process, said his government would extend all support necessary to the Indian government. “Terrorism threatens both countries, and we should join hands in fighting this scourge,” he said, in a statement.

A spokesman for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) has denied that the extremist group was involved in the Bombay attack. The group, which has been fighting Indian forces in Kashmir, has continued to operate from its base in Pakistan under the banner of Jamaat-ud Dawa despite being proscribed by the government.

“We have nothing to do with the Mumbai (Bombay) attacks," the spokesman said on phone. The group, which is led by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, a former university professor, is the largest Pakistani-based group to have been involved in terrorist attacks inside India in the past.

The group was blamed for bomb attacks on markets in New Delhi that killed more than 60 people in 2005, as well as an assault on India's parliament in 2001 that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a fourth war.

An estimated 200,000 people participated in Jamaat-ud Dawa’s rally held last week in the central Punjab city of Muridke, indicating that the movement has grown in strength despite Islamabad’s claim of crackdown on Jihadist organisations.

LeT’s main focus is jihad against India, which it considers an enemy of Islam. A party document declared that the group is fighting not only liberate Kashmir, but re-establish Muslim rule in whole of India. LeT is said to have developed a strong network in India among radical Muslims.

The attacks in Bombay, and allegations of the involvement of Pakistani based militants, could strain already-fragile relations between two nuclear armed nations, which have fought three wars since their independence in 1947.

“The statement of the Indian Prime Minister is premature and could escalate tension in the region,” said Tariq Fatmi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington. “It will have a negative affect on the ongoing efforts to normalise relations between the two countries.”

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