NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR, 1 August — India said yesterday rebel incursions into disputed Kashmir had fallen slightly in recent months after Pakistan promised to stop the flow.
New Delhi has set a permanent end to infiltration in the bloodied region as a condition to ending a military standoff with Pakistan. “If we compare with the past years, this year the infiltration has somewhat reduced but has not stopped, it still continues,” Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani told Parliament.
India had said earlier rebel border crossings into Kashmir from Pakistan had resumed after a brief lull. New Delhi has long blamed Pakistan for fomenting the revolt in Kashmir, a charge denied by Islamabad. Advani, who also heads the Home Ministry, said security forces had prevented several intrusion attempts by either killing or arresting rebels along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
Advani’s comments came days after US Secretary of State Colin Powell ended a peace mission to South Asia urging the nuclear-armed neighbors to pull back from the brink and move toward talks.
Powell said at the weekend Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had given fresh assurances to stop militants crossing over to Kashmir. He said Washington expected New Delhi to respond by taking steps to reduce border tension.
Advani said there were still enough rebels in Kashmir.
Meanwhile, Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes yesterday said Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters had concentrated in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to sneak into Indian Kashmir.
“Inputs indicate there are concentrations of Al-Qaeda terrorists and Taleban in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir with an intent to infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir at an opportune moment,” he said.
Fernandes’ remarks, part of a written reply in the upper house, came two days after he told Britain’s Channel Four television network that reports from “unimpeachable” sources had indicated Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was in Pakistan. Islamabad has rejected Fernandes’ claim. The defense minister attributed a decline in Pakistan-backed terrorist incursions across the LoC to the deployment of additional Indian forces along the cease-fire line.
In Kashmir, meanwhile, a government official and a policeman were killed and six people were wounded in fresh attacks in Kashmir, police said yesterday.
In the Pakistan-controlled sector of the region, three people were killed in the last 24 hours from shelling by Indian troops firing over the LoC, Pakistan police said in Muzaffarabad. “There are already so many infiltrators here that they can maintain the same level of violence for at least the next three to four months,” Advani told the upper house of Parliament.
Pakistan, which wants implementation of a UN resolution for a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people, has repeatedly sought an end to the border face-off and talks to resolve the decades-old dispute over the territory.
Indian opposition parties wanted the government to say how it would tackle militancy in Kashmir and relations with Pakistan. “Can our armed forces remain in a state of mobilization indefinitely?” Manmohan Singh, senior leader of the main opposition Congress party, asked in the upper house.
The opposition parties yesterday joined the global community in urging Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government to ensure that the upcoming Kashmir elections were “free and fair”.
