NEW DELHI, 20 June — India said yesterday that it has noticed a significant drop in infiltration of militants from across Pakistan into Kashmir and held out the hope of withdrawing troops from its border in two months. "So far as trans-border terrorism is concerned there has been considerable decline," Defense Minister George Fernandes told reporters.
In separate remarks to a local television station, he said India could end its huge military deployment at the border with Pakistan in the next two months, if it was convinced the flow of militants in the disputed region of Kashmir had stopped.
India and Pakistan exchange almost daily fire in mountainous Kashmir. But Indian and Pakistani paramilitary troops were involved in a first exchange of fire yesterday on the border of the desert state of Rajasthan in which two people died, the Defense Ministry said.
A ministry spokesman said the firing that broke out Tuesday night in Ganganagar district stopped after local commanders held a meeting yesterday. "The situation is completely calm now," he said.
The shooting on the border began when a man tried to cross over from Pakistan, he said.
The dead included a soldier of the Indian Border Security Force and the suspected intruder.
On the Pakistani side, a civilian was wounded.
"If we see, say, in the next one month or say maximum two months that terrorists coming from Pakistan have stopped, then we will believe that the situation is normalizing and then we can do the job of calling back our army," Fernandes told the Hindi language Aaj Tak television channel in an interview.
Some one million troops have been massed along the border since an attack on the Indian Parliament in December that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based fighters.
Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors have eased slightly since India, under intense US pressure, pulled back warships from the Arabian Sea and lifted a ban on overflights by Pakistani commercial aircraft.
India also selected an envoy for Islamabad, but he has not yet been sent there. Islamabad has repeatedly urged resumption of talks to resolve the 55-year-old dispute over Kashmir, and an end to the military build-up on the border.
