PM warns Indians to prepare for war

With India and Pakistan having failed to reach any compromise on ways to defuse the month-long fighting in northern Kashmir state, fears of an escalation in hostilities have increased.

The Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, yesterday said the country must be prepared for war with Pakistan.s armed conflict. "We want peace but should keep ourselves prepared for war," he told Indian troops in the mountainous battle zone of Kargi, where they have been fighting hundreds of Islamic guerrilla fighters occupying strategic ridges in Indian territory over 16,000 feet high.

The Indian government says the intruders, who threaten a crucial military highway, include Pakistani soldiers, a claim which is denied by Islamabad. India yesterday described as "baseless" a Pakistani military accusation that the Indian army was using chemical shells in artillery attacks across the ceasefire line. "We have not used any chemical weapon or shell," an army spokesman commented. "The report from Pakistan is baseless."

Mr Vajpayee's hard-hitting speech comes a day after talks between the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers in Delhi ended in deadlock. Mr Vajpayee accused Pakistan of betraying India's friendship and vowed to oust the intruders - even as artillery shells from across the disputed Line of Control in Kashmir burst less than a mile from where he was delivering his address. "We will give a fitting reply," the prime minister said. "We will not rest till all the intruders are driven out from our territory." Earlier yesterday the prime minister had a narrow escape when the office of the divisional commissioner at Kargil, where he was originally scheduled to make his public speech, was destroyed by Pakistani artillery fire from across the border.

Officials said fighting intensified yesterday, with India carrying out air strikes against the intruders and engaging in exchanges with Pakistan artillery.

The two nuclear-capable nations have fought two of their three wars since independence over Kashmir but the latest border conflict is the most serious. In about four weeks of fighting - in which army assault teams have enlisted the help of mountaineers to fix rope ladders to help them to ascend sheer, icy cliff walls - more than 90 Indian soldiers have died and 220 have been wounded, many seriously. Eight soldiers are missing.

The Indian army spokesman Col Singh said that up to 250 intruders had been killed.

Mr Vajpayee said that the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mr Sartaj Aziz, had been bluntly told in Delhi on Saturday to "vacate" areas that had been occupied by Pakistani troops and Islamic mercenaries in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Mr Aziz denied any Pakistani army involvement in Kashmir and accused India of escalating tension by using fighter aircraft.

India also demanded that the Pakistanis responsible for torturing, before shooting dead, six Indian soldiers, whose bodies were handed over last week, be brought to justice. Pakistan said India's claims were "baseless".

Meanwhile, leave for all Indian soldiers has been cancelled. And, unlike other years, the Indian navy, which has been put on alert, is to conduct its summer exercises in the Arabian Sea, off its western shores bordering Pakistan. "We have made certain precautionary deployments in case of any untoward eventuality," said a senior naval officer.

Officials said a strike force, including submarines, destroyers and frigates, had been moved from the navy's eastern fleet headquarters at Vishakhapatnam to the western command at Bombay. The navy has also increased surveillance of its western coastline using long-range reconnaissance aircraft and activated its radar and electronic warfare apparatus.

India's navy played a critical role in the third war with Pakistan in 1971 by blockading its southern port Karachi.