One year on,

India-Pakistan chill deepens (One Year After 26/11)

26-28, 2008 - three days that took India-Pakistan ties from a high note of hope to a crashing low. One year on, after seven dossiers given by India linking Pakistani militants to the Mumbai terror strike, reminders about bringing the attackers to justice and two meetings between leaders of the two countries, the dialogue process remains in deep freeze.

Hours before terrorists struck Mumbai on the night of Nov 26 -- to begin a 60-hour terror siege that killed 166 people -- Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi were posing before photographers in New Delhi and declaring their conviction that the peace process was irreversible.

A little while later, 10 Pakistani terrorists blew away that feel-good picture of bonhomie and subcontinental camaraderie.

The chill set in deep in the weeks that followed with the Pakistani spin machinery accusing India of troops build-up and New Delhi denying the charges.

India launched an unprecedented exercise to mobilise international opinion to pressure Pakistan into acting against the perpetrators of the carnage.

Under global pressure and the US throwing its weight behind India, Pakistan started token crackdowns on terror outfits and banned the Jamaat- ud-Dawa, a front for the Lashker-e-Taiba, the chief suspect behind the Mumbai attacks, and put its founder Hafiz Saeed under house arrest.

Nearly seven months after 26/11, a limited thaw began when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of a multilateral summit in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

With cameras flashing and journalists noting every word, Manmohan Singh told Zardari bluntly that he had a limited mandate to tell him that Pakistani territory couldn't be allowed to be used for terror attacks against India.

The foreign ministers of the two countries are expected to meet again in the Trinidadian capital of Port of Spain Nov 28, but no one is expecting a breakthrough.

Earlier, Gilani was expected to attend the summit but appears to have opted out for domestic reasons.

The pattern of India giving fresh evidence, followed by Pakistan's demand for more proof, has not ceased with New Delhi handing over the seventh dossier Nov 17. The long night of Nov 26 continues to cast shadows over India-Pakistan relations, and there is no sign of daybreak, a year after bilateral ties hurtled into a free fall.