Islamabad: Hosting his Iranian counterpart Syed Muhammad Khatami, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has once again raked up Gujarat violence, saying it "exposed the myth of Indian secularism".

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of "cynically encouraging" communal riots, Musharraf said at a banquet he hosted for the visiting Iranian President on the night of December 23 that "what has happened in Gujarat has finally exposed the myth of Indian secularism".

Musharraf had raked up the Gujarat violence in his address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly last November, infuriating Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who attacked the Pakistani President during his poll campaign addressing him as 'Miyan Musharraf' repeatedly.

Making Indo-Pak relations the central theme of his banquet address, Musharraf accused India of entertaining "hegemonic ambitions" and said New Delhi's efforts to "impose a military solution on Kashmir and to use coercive diplomacy through concentration of troops on our borders have failed miserably".

He expressed hope that Iran would help resolve the Kashmir issue in line with UN resolutions.

While making a brief mention of potential of Iran to play a role in easing Indo-Pak tensions, Khatami in his speech avoided direct response to repeated references by Musharraf to Pakistan's tension-ridden relations with India.

"We have good relations with both India and Pakistan and we can play an important role in defusing tensions between the two. We have even in the past tried to find solutions to defuse tensions," Khatami said.

PTI