KARANCHI: India sent their first sports team to Pakistan in more than a year today as a seven-member boxing team flew into Karachi to compete in an international tournament named after former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The boxers are the first Indian sports team to cross the border since India stalled sporting links with Pakistan after the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai, which New Delhi blamed on militants based in Pakistan. India refused to allow their cricket team to tour Pakistan late last year, citing security fears. Pakistan sent tennis, squash and snooker players to compete in India last year but New Delhi resisted sending their own sportsmen to Pakistan. The peace process between the two neighbours, who have fought three wars since independence in 1947, collapsed after the Mumbai attacks. Head coach of the Indian boxing team, Shiv Singh, said the boxers were happy to tour Pakistan. “We have been cleared by the government to take part in the event and all the members of the squad are very happy to be here,” Singh told reporters at the airport in Karachi. Mohammad Ali Shah, the sports minister in Sindh province of which Karachi is the capital, promised tight security arrangements in the wake of a suicide attack that killed 43 people in the city on Monday. On March 3, an attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore killed eight people and wounded seven Sri Lankan players and a coach, all but destroyed Pakistan’s hopes of hosting top-level international sport.