Pakistan arrests militant as tension with India rises

Saying that it wanted to defuse the brewing crisis with India, Pakistan yesterday arrested Mr Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the head of the militant Lashkar-e-Taiba, "for making inflammatory speeches to incite people to violate law and order," a top security official, requesting anonymity, said.

India has blamed the leader and another Pakistan-based group - Jaish-e-Mohammad - of carrying out the December 13th attack on the parliament in New Delhi at the behest of Pakistani intelligence.

Earlier the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, said he was confident that diplomatic pressure would resolve the current crisis. At an all-party meeting Mr Vajpayee said the international community was aware of India's anger.

"I firmly believe this will put sufficient pressure on Pakistan forcing it to act against the terrorist groups," the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr Pramod Mahajan, quoted Mr Vajpayee as saying. Party leaders had agreed that, while every effort should be made to avert a war, they would offer the government full backing in the event of a conflict "being forced" upon India.

Military tensions between the nuclear rivals have increased since the December 13th suicide attack on the Indian parliament in which 14 people died. India demanded that Pakistan curb cross-border terrorism and arrest the leaders of the groups responsible for the attack and hand them over for trial.

After Islamabad refused, the two sides began massing troops along their border, exchanging tit-for-tat diplomatic sanctions and cutting air, rail and road links.

But defence officers in Delhi played down the probability of war over the disputed province of Kashmir.

They said India had lost the opportunity of launching a surgical strike against terrorist camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, as demanded by deputies and, despite the build-up, there was no chance of war. "Our troop deployment is 200 per cent defensive," Mr Mahajan said.

"With the two armies now squared-off against each other, the outcome of any conflict is unlikely to be decisive," another officer said. Under these circumstances neither side would want to raise the ante or take undue risks, he added. The two armies were also incapable of fighting a prolonged war.

Cantonments across northern India, meanwhile, are deserted, emptied of soldiers and equipment as the world's third largest army positions itself for war.

At Ambala, headquarters of India's formidable "strike" corps, a handful of sentries guard the now empty garrison town, 120 miles north of Delhi. It was vacated over the past fortnight after the military deployment began along the 2,070-mile-long Pakistan border.

Closer to the frontier, cheering villagers lined highways, stopping the ceaseless convoy of trucks ferrying soldiers, artillery pieces and varied equipment of war, forcing hot cups of sweetened tea and home-cooked food upon them on cold and foggy days.