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NEW DELHI : India and Pakistan will resume peace talks as planned, government sources said on Monday, despite a deadly restaurant bombing at the weekend that led to calls for the negotiations to be cancelled.
As police scoured security camera footage of Saturday's blast in Pune, western India, a government source in New Delhi told AFP there was "no change" to a meeting of Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries on February 25.
It will mark the first official talks between the South Asian rivals for 14 months.
Another source said the government would refrain from any "knee-jerk reaction", amid calls from the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the meeting to be called off.
India broke off all official dialogue with Pakistan following the November 2008 Mumbai attacks which it blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
New Delhi suspects Pakistan of supporting anti-India militancy and has consistently called on Islamabad to crack down on groups operating from its soil.
Saturday's blast at the German Bakery in Pune was the first major attack on Indian soil since Mumbai and came just a day after the two sides agreed to a meeting between their foreign secretaries.
Two foreigners - an Italian woman and an Iranian man - were among the nine people killed. Twelve of the 57 people injured were foreign nationals.
Pune police commissioner Satyapal Singh told reporters that three of the injured, including one foreign national, were still critical.
Investigations were heading in the "right direction," he said, without elaborating.
Indian media reports sought to link Saturday's bombing to previous attacks by an India-based Islamist movement, the Indian Mujahideen, fearing sleeper cells were now active and further strikes likely.
The Indian Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for a series of bombings in New Delhi in September 2008 and reports have highlighted similarities between them and the Pune blast.
Home Secretary Gopal Pillai told the CNN-IBN television network on Monday that Pakistan-based rebel groups were behind all attacks in India, though he declined to say specifically who was to blame for the Pune blast.
"I think there is no doubt in our minds all this activity is being masterminded from across the border," Pillai said.
A bomb hidden in an abandoned rucksack left under a table exploded at about 7.30 pm (1400 GMT) on Saturday while the restaurant was packed with mainly young Indians.
On Sunday, Home Minister P Chidambaram said New Delhi was keen to get access to David Coleman Headley, a US-Pakistani national currently awaiting trial in the United States on a string of terror charges.
Headley, 49, is alleged to have scouted possible targets in India for the LeT before the Mumbai attacks. He denies the claims.
Chidambaram said Headley stayed at the Osho Ashram - a religious retreat popular with foreigners - which is a stone's throw from the German Bakery.
A religious and cultural centre run by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement is also nearby. A similar centre was one of the targets in the Mumbai attacks.
The Times of India said Monday that the bombing should be seen in the context of the resumption of the diplomatic talks and a major coalition offensive in southern Afghanistan.
Pakistan-based Islamists "could well be trying to open up a conflict zone on Pakistan's eastern front, which would deflect attention from them," an editorial in the daily said. - AFP/ms
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