Agencies 

NEW DELHI, Mar 27: Even as a new elected government takes office in Islamabad, New Delhi has expressed worry over ISI continuing to help terrorist outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba to launch attacks against India.

"We have seen no change in ISI's attitude to mentor terror groups like Lashkar and Jaish... attacks on India from Pakistan's soil are likely to continue," said national security advisor M K Narayanan, while delivering the 25th Air Chief Marshal P C Lal Memorial Lecture on Wednesday.

Dwelling at length on the entire spectrum of "threats and challenges" faced by India in a volatile neighbourhood and the urgent need to evolve a "national consensus" on security issues, Narayanan also sought to counter BJP's "soft-on-terrorism" charge against the UPA government. While admitting that intelligence and security agencies sometimes failed to thwart terrorist attacks like was seen in the Mumbai, Hyderabad and Delhi blasts, he said, "We have a zero-tolerance towards terrorism."

"We have averted several terrorist attacks in the last few years...Since 2004, more than 1,000 terrorist modules have been neutralized...Terrorism is too serious a matter for dichotomy of opinion," said Narayanan. Similarly, the NSA underlined the need for a political consensus to deal with the other major internal security threat of "Left-wing extremism".

Admitting that it often arose due to "extreme deprivation", the NSA, however, dismissed talk of Naxalism afflicting 160-165 districts in the country as highly exaggerated, along with the "mythical" Left corridor.

Noting that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had congratulated his new Pakistan counterpart Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani and expressed the hope that bilateral relations and CBMs would become the "best ever" under the new regime, the NSA said it was in India's interests to have a "stable" Pakistan.

India, however, cannot ignore that "strong anti-India pockets" continue to flourish in Pakistan, especially among intelligence agencies like ISI, with Bangladesh also being used as a "spring-board" for terrorist attacks to be launched against India.

"We are also aware that Pakistan's military strategy is India-centric," he said. Pakistan is engaged in "frenetic" activity to acquire military, nuclear and missile capabilities, often with China's help, in its bid to achieve "parity" with India.

Another grave danger to India was the prevailing instability on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the "epicentre of terrorism" and jihadi nursery. "The challenge we face with Pakistan is how to enlarge our area of contact with it, without compromising on our national security parameters," he said.