NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD, 30 December — Pakistan yesterday began moving its troops from its western border with Afghanistan to match a build-up by India in the east as New Delhi continued its bellicose stance. At the southwestern border town of Chaman, a reporter saw troops pulling out and packing up anti-aircraft guns installed at some checkpoints with Afghanistan. "We have received orders to move," one soldier said when asked why they were leaving the Afghan frontier, where several battalions of additional troops had been deployed to keep out Al-Qaeda fighters. "You know what’s going on there or what may happen," he said, apparently referring to the troop buildup on the border with India and fears of war. The two nuclear-armed rivals have massed troops along their border in the biggest such buildup in 15 years following the Dec. 13 attack on the Indian parliament.
New Delhi blames two Pakistan-based groups fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region for the raid on the parliament that left 14 people dead, including the five assailants. It wants the leaders of the groups arrested and is furious that Pakistan has not done more to meet those demands.
At the end of an emergency meeting of his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in New Delhi, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee asserted that India would do its "utmost to avoid a war with Pakistan but people should be prepared for any eventuality". Media reports said India has drawn up a list of 30 terrorists and criminals who, after committing crimes in India, have taken refuge in Pakistan. A report in The Hindustan Times quoted official sources as saying New Delhi will ask Pakistan to extradite them for trial in India.
The list includes Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim, five hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 in 1999, and Tiger Memon and Chhota Shakeel, suspects in the 1993 Bombay blasts. It also has names of nine commanders of Hizbul Mujahedeen, three of Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami and one each of Lashkar-e-Taieba, Harkatul Mujahedeen and Khalistan Liberation Front, a report in The Indian Express said.
US President George W. Bush, whose administration has been working to avoid a fourth war between India and Pakistan, telephoned President Pervez Musharraf. "(They) discussed in detail the prevailing regional situation, Pakistan-India relations and the tensions on the borders," the official APP news agency reported.
Musharraf, who has been a key ally of the US-led war on terrorism in neighboring Afghanistan, said the international community should counsel India to exercise restraint. Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar urged caution, saying there was a high possibility some small action could set in motion a chain of events that would result in a conflict between the two countries.
India ruled out any formal meeting between Vajpayee and Musharraf at an upcoming South Asia leadership summit in Nepal. However, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said India had agreed to a Pakistani request for Musharraf to fly through Indian airspace on his way to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference in Katmandu. "There will be no absence of civilities, but on a meeting there is nothing planned," Rao said.
But a government source in Islamabad said Pakistan has not asked India to waive its airspace ban for Musharraf. "Pakistan will not make any request for an overflight because President Musharraf has decided that he would not like to avail himself of a facility which is not available to other Pakistanis," the source said.
In another sign of souring relations, Pakistan said it had taken all Indian television news channels off its airwaves. Private cable operators in Pakistan have been ordered to stop distributing Indian channels to their customers.
"The Pakistan government has banned showing Indian satellite channels as well as Star channels on cables for their poisonous propaganda against Pakistan," the official APP news agency quoted Maj. Gen. Shahzada Alam Malik, chairman of the state-owned Telecommunication Authority as saying.
Meanwhile, one civilian was killed and three were injured when troops of the two countries traded fire along the tense Line of Control which divides disputed Kashmir, officials said. "Indian troops resorted to shelling with small and large arms at noon without any provocation," said a police spokesman in the city of Kotli in Azad Kashmir.
