T he Dec. 13 terrorist raid on India's Parliament in New Delhi has understandably drawn parallels with what happened in New York and the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

Admittedly, the American tragedy dwarfs the New Delhi attack, certainly in terms of death and destruction, but happening as it did in times when the world is extraordinarily sensitive to terrorism, it is not difficult to empathize with the sense of outrage among the Indian leadership.

Also, the violence and damage could have been much worse: had it not been for an alert security guard at one of the many entrances to the Parliament building, the other gates might not have been shut quickly enough to prevent greater mayhem.

India's prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Home Minister L.K. Advani, and other top ministers were all inside the chamber when the terrorists -- now established as being Pakistani citizens -- struck.

What produced deep revulsion in India is that the intruders clearly belonged to the two Pakistan-based outfits: Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, who are suspected of carrying out their plan at the behest of the country's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.

This was just one of several alarming pieces of information that Advani and official sources in New Delhi have divulged over the past days.

All of the five terrorists were shot dead, along with eight others, mostly security men. But according to Indian intelligence, the leader of the suicide squad, identified as Mohammad, was the hijacker who was aboard the Indian Airlines flight that was forced to land in Kandahar in Afghanistan in 1999. He killed one of the passengers, Rupin Katyal, who was returning with his young bride from his honeymoon in the Nepalese capital of Katmandu. Katyal was the sole casualty.

Mohammad and the other hijackers, who belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed, were then helped to their freedom by the Taliban. So were Moulana Masood Azahar and some others of the Jaish-e-Mohammed. They were all were freed from Indian prisons in exchange for the passengers' lives. In what seemed like utter humiliation, the senior Indian minister, Jaswant Singh, was forced to escort the captured extremists to Kandahar.

It was inescapable that the assault on India's symbol of democracy and political power has led to widespread anger, both within the administration and the public.

What are New Delhi's options after this latest effrontery?

There is general consensus among Indians that India must do what the U.S. did to the Taliban in Afghanistan, or what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

This hawkish tendency appears to have permeated just about every part of India's society.

At a recent television show, the nation's information and broadcasting minister, Sushma Swaraj, not only breathed fire at Pakistan but also harped on a strategy of "hot pursuit."

Those in India who may feel tempted to ask its forces to pursue militants right across the border with Pakistan and try and finish them off must understand that the situation in the subcontinent is different from what prevails in West Asia or Afghanistan.

Afghanistan and the Palestinians do not have nuclear weapons. India and Pakistan do, and hot pursuit by Indian soldiers into Pakistani territory will undoubtedly provoke a full-scale war, a conflict that neither can afford to risk.

When the two neighbors fought their earlier three wars -- each time over the disputed state of Kashmir which both New Delhi and Islamabad lay claim on -- they did not possess nuclear devices, and the wars remained conventional.

Sensing the current belligerent mood, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has urged restraint between the two powers.

U.S. Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill's presence at Parliament's visitors' gallery a day after the attack must have given some comfort to the distraught Indian leadership. Perhaps, one can read in this a growing American sympathy for India's troubles.

This, however, is not meant to imply that New Delhi can embark on a dangerous adventure. Its sole option lies in diplomacy.

What India must now do, in the words of Madras-based The Hindu newspaper editorial, is to present "credible and authoritative evidence" against Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

"This can be done by fixing the culpability of these organizations in a reasonably transparent exercise which places the issue beyond doubt. . . . There is a lesson to be learned from the fact that the U.S. has felt compelled, at the height of its ongoing antiterror war in Afghanistan, to release what it classifies as a providentially obtained video-record. This pertains to Osama bin Laden's confessions (or, celebrations) as regards his suspected role of orchestrating the terrorist offensive. . . .," the editorial said.

New Delhi has agreed to share with the major world powers whatever it finds out about the Dec. 13 attack. A lot has been unearthed, but lot more remains to be done.

However, it is about time that the global players realize the game Pakistan is up to. After the Parliament attack, Islamabad not only denied that the two rebel groups had planned and executed the carnage, but it also had the temerity to suggest that it was plotted by India's secret services.

More significantly, the world must realize that Kashmir poses a peculiar and complex problem that cannot be equated with the Palestinian question.