NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD, 3 January — India talked of war again yesterday as Kashmiri groups based in neighboring Pakistan threatened fresh attacks in India hours before a grenade attack in Srinagar injured a score of people.

"Whatever weapon is available, we will use it to defend ourselves," Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in his constituency of Lucknow in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. "And if because of that weapon the attacker is defeated...if he is killed, we should not be held responsible," said Vajpayee, who is under pressure to appear tough ahead of state elections in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.

Earlier the country’s defense minister, George Fernandes, said Indian forces had completed their biggest-ever buildup but were "not in battle positions". He held out hope that diplomacy could still avert a war with Pakistan. "Efforts are being made to defuse the situation through diplomatic intervention," he said.

But Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, which have been accused by India of an attack on its parliament on Dec. 13 that killed 14 people, threatened fresh violence. Security was tightened at India’s famed Taj Mahal monument after Indian officials claimed they had received an e-mail from Lashkar threatening to blow up the landmark to love.

And Jaish said in a statement published in newspapers in revolt-racked Kashmir that it would carry out new attacks on Indian security forces. "We are in possession of more deadly and sophisticated weapons and they will be fully used against the military and paramilitary forces of India in the coming days," the group said. Pakistan has so far rounded up around 100 activists in response to India’s demands to arrest militants, according to Jaish and Lashkar officials. India has called the arrests a step in the right direction. But Jaish said it would seek to escape the net by shifting its offices into the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir which covers two-thirds of the disputed region. Pakistan insisted that India provide evidence against 20 alleged terrorists whom it wants extradited as part of moves to ease military tensions. "The list is with regard to crimes committed in India. Obviously they have to provide evidence," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan.

The New York Times reported that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has shut down a wing of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency that provided backing for military groups fighting in Kashmir. Pakistani officials told the daily that Musharraf believed the policy change would "cause a scaling down of the freedom struggle, but will not be its end." The officials said Pakistan would continue to provide "moral and political" support to groups with local roots that are not part of the Jihad movement that has links with the Al-Qaeda network.

They added that such groups, however, would not get military training and weapons and would also be required to purge all non-Kashmiri Muslims, including Arabs and Chechens from their rank.

A telecom official said in Srinagar that the Indian government has stopped long-distance calls from all public telephone offices in Kashmir to prevent militants from communicating with each other. The official said the facilities had been withdrawn from about 2,500 public phone offices run by state-owned telecoms giant Bharat Sanchar Nigam.

The border remained tense as Indian police said four Pakistani soldiers were killed when Indian and Pakistani troops fired mortars and heavy machine guns across the frontier.