NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD, 20 December — India yesterday rejected Pakistan’s offer to conduct a joint investigation into last week’s suicide attack on the parliament complex in New Delhi prompting condemnation from Islamabad.

"There is no question of a joint probe," Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told a parliamentary debate on how India should respond to the Dec. 13 incident.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said: "India has neither agreed to our suggestion for an impartial inquiry into the incident nor responded to Pakistan’s request for evidence."

"Now, as Indian authorities have once again jumped to an unwarranted conclusion, their accusations against Pakistan lack credibility. If India really believes in its accusation, it should agree to an impartial inquiry," Sattar said.

Taking note of external powers’ advice to India to exercise restraint, Vajpayee said: "All those who are asking us to exercise restraint should also talk to our neighbor."

Declaring that India does not need any external help to fight terrorism, Vajpayee said that while efforts were being made to avert war against Pakistan, the government was not relying solely on diplomacy in its fight against the Dec. 13 terrorist attackers.

Vajpayee said that while he hoped diplomatic pressure on Pakistan would work, the government was keeping all its options open. He said: "India has exercised the maximum restraint, which has now reached its pinnacle. All efforts should be made to avert war and all alternatives should be evaluated."

Vajpayee further said that all the terrorists killed in the attack on the Indian parliament were Pakistani nationals.

Reacting to the United States call for restraint Vajpayee said: "We respect the sentiments of those who are preaching us to exercise restraint but they too will have to respect the sentiments of the people of this country."

Also, responding to US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement cautioning India against taking military action across the border, ruling Bhartiya Janata Party’s spokesperson Vijay Kumar Malhotra said the US had "no business to tell India what course of action to take".

Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani said the government was considering "hot pursuit" of militants across the disputed Kashmir border with Pakistan.

Meanwhile, as the two sides traded charges Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged fire over their disputed border in Kashmir overnight in the first such exchange since New Delhi accused Islamabad of instigating last week’s attack on the Indian parliament.

An Indian Army spokesman yesterday accused Pakistani troops of opening heavy mortar and machine-gun fire at Indian positions, causing panic among nearby residents, along the Line of Control (LoC) — the de facto border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, police said that Indian forces staged heavy mortar attacks over three hours, hitting two villages and injuring three civilians, including a woman. "The shelling was intense and without any provocation," police Senior Superintendent Tariq Ajmi said in Muzaffarabad.

India’s Army chief said yesterday that there was a sizable Pakistani troop build-up along the Indo-Pakistan border and that India has taken "appropriate steps" to counter the threat.

Pakistan’s military government spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, told AFP the report was "absolutely untrue."