Pakistan is keeping a close eye on the communal bloodbath in India, hoping the violence will not spill over its borders while pressing New Delhi to act more aggressively to quell it.

Pakistani officials have stayed largely mum on India's worst communal fighting in nearly a decade, saying only that Islamabad "regretted" the orgy of violence that has claimed more than 300 lives in the western state of Gujarat.

Analysts say the reticence shows Pakistan, already in a tense border standoff with its arch-rival,

has enough on its plate.

"The government at the moment is not looking for trouble with India. They are sitting on top of an awkward law and order situation," M.A. Niazi, an editor at The Nation newspaper, told AFP.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has pledged a domestic crackdown on Islamic extremists blamed for the grisly slaying of American journalist Daniel Pearl and the massacre of 11 Shiite Muslims at a mosque.

Niazi said India's riots were unlikely to have immediate repercussions here, as Pakistani

Muslims had few direct ties with Gujarat, despite the geographic proximity.

However, the situation could change if the violence spreads north to Uttar Pradesh, home of the demolished Babri Mosque where hardline Hindus want to build a temple on what they believe is the birthplace of the god Ram.

A significant number of Pakistanis are descendants of Muslims who emigrated from Uttar Pradesh after the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 between Hindu-majority but secular India and the Muslim homeland of Pakistan.