Steve Quayle News Alerts

May 21, 2002

Shelling between Pakistani and Indian troops intensified in disputed Kashmir as troops flooded into the region ahead of a visit by the premier, while the defence minister warned military commanders to be ready "for any eventuality."

With fears of an all-out war between the nuclear rivals sending jitters through local bourses, China joined the growing international chorus calling for restraint.

Defence Minister George Fernandes Tuesday told commanders in the western desert state of Rajasthan that a "strong reply" had to be given to Pakistan-backed terrorism, while the Indian navy, already on high alert, said it had stepped up security measures.

The troops had been brought into Gujarat in early March to stem rioting in Ahmedabad, where over 1,000 people have been killed in sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims.

A defence spokesman said the troop movement had "no link" with the current impasse with Pakistan.

However, Gurupal Singh, the divisional manager of state-run Indian Railways, said the army had requisitioned special trains to move additional troops to the border.

"There has been a great deal of troop movement. Extra rations and water are also being carried by the railways to meet the needs of the soldiers on the border," said Singh.

According to Rajasthan state government officials, the army also took a decision late Monday to halt traditional flag meetings between Indian Border Security Force guards and Pakistani rangers posted on the highly-militarised western border.

The daily flag meetings saw an officer from each side meeting in no man's land and raising a white flag before holding discussions.

Heavy shelling continued Tuesday in Kashmir, police said, with both sides lobbing artillery shells on each others' positions.

Police said a soldier and three civilians, two of them children, were killed by Pakistani shelling at Palanwala, west of Jammu, the state's winter capital in the south, while six people were injured in two militant bomb blasts.

The latest round of cross-border artillery duels between the two sides began last Friday in response to an attack a week ago by Islamic militants on an army camp near Jammu, in which 35 people were killed.

So far at least six people have died in the shelling in Indian administered Kashmir, according to police figures, while 23 have been wounded.

Pakistani officials put their own toll at 12 dead and more than 50 injured.

As the shelling continued, India's security forces fanned out in the streets of Jammu ahead of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's expected arrival late Tuesday.

With hundreds of thousands of Indian troops already massed nearby, southern Kashmir was in a state of virtual siege, an AFP correspondent said.

About 2,000 personnel of the Jammu and Kashmir police, backed by an almost equal number of paramilitary soldiers were on duty to provide security cover to Vajpayee and his entourage.

Vajpayee is slated to spend three days in Kashmir, kicking off with a visit to a military hospital where some of the 50 or so people injured in the recent attack on the Kaluchak army base are recovering.

In a diplomatic flurry aimed at defusing the tension, Washington urged the nuclear rivals to keep diplomatic channels open and confirmed Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage would soon visit South Asia.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020521/1/2pvkp.html