India had made this proposal in the wake of the killing five months ago of Ramankutty Maniyappan, an engineer of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) working on the Zaranz-Delaram highway construction.

Karzai was reminded of the proposal when he was here on a visit earlier this month.

Diplomatic sources say that besides slow decision-making, the Karzai government is also hamstrung by Pakistani sensitivities about the presence of around 2,000 Indians working on various infrastructure and development projects in Afghanistan.

Islamabad has time and again protested at India having four consulates in Afghanistan, two of them in Jalalabad and Kandahar that are near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Pakistan keeps accusing the Indian consulates of fomenting trouble in the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan where Pakistani security forces are constantly locked in a war of attrition with the Taliban and remnants of the Al Qaeda.

Who is behind Indian engineer K. Suryanarayan's kidnapping is not still clear. Sources say Qaeri Yusuf Ahmadi, who claimed to speak for the Taliban is not the usual spokesman. Claims by the Taliban are generally done in the name of its supremo Mullah Omar.

Osama bin Laden too has never blamed India or Indians. However, his deputy, Ayman al-Zaweherie, last week for the first time spoke of "a Christian-Hindu-Zionist conspiracy". One reason for this could be the perceptions about growing Indo-US relations in the wake of President George W. Bush's visit to India and the nuclear deal.