Vajpayee uses anniversary to taunt Pakistan

Vajpayee called on Pakistan to end what he said was its support of terrorists in Kashmir

NEW DELHI, India -- Addressing New Delhi crowds from behind bullet-proof glass, India's prime minister has used his annual Independence Day speech to fire another verbal salvo at old foe Pakistan.

With security tightened at flashpoints around the country, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee blamed Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf for the failure of their Kashmir peace summit last month.

The speech came as it emerged separatist guerrillas had shot dead five Hindus including three women in India's trouble-torn Jammu and Kashmir state.

Muslim militants entered the victims' house and opened fire killing five people and wounding one in Udhampur district, some 65 km (40 miles) from Jammu, the winter capital of the disputed Himalayan territory, police said.

Vajpayee used Wednesday's speech to accuse Musharraf of having a one-point agenda governing their relations.

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"We believe in friendship of the people of the two countries and all-round relations but Pervez Musharraf was not interested in this," Vajpayee said.

"He came with a one-point agenda of Kashmir and ... (to) call terrorists 'freedom fighters'," Vajpayee said. "All this was not acceptable to us. Pakistan should stop believing it can gain Kashmir through terrorism."

The July 15-16 talks in the Indian city of Agra -- the first summit between the nuclear-capable neighbors in more than two years -- ended without even a joint declaration.

India refused to accept Pakistan's insistence that the dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir was the "core issue" in their strained relations, and Pakistan refused to recognize what New Delhi calls "cross-border terrorism."

Islamabad denies charges that it sponsors the 12-year-old insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir, saying it provides only moral and diplomatic support to an indigenous struggle for self-determination.

Vajpayee was speaking from behind a bullet-proof glass screen on the soaring ramparts of the 17th-century Red Fort in the Indian capital as the country began a day of celebrations to mark Independence Day.

Watched by millions on a live television broadcast, he unfurled a petal-filled Indian tricolour at the fortress, where -- until 1947 -- a British flag proclaimed the nation as its dominion.

Pakistan -- which celebrated its independence anniversary on Tuesday -- was partitioned out of the sub-continent at the same time.

Authorities tightened security around New Delhi, Kashmir and the insurgency-racked northeastern corner of the country to stave off Independence Day attacks by guerrillas, who had called for a boycott of the festivities.

Station bombing planned

Hundreds of troops were deployed in and around New Delhi's Red Fort

On Tuesday there were flashes of violence in Kashmir and the northeast, and three people were killed when an explosive device went off on a train which was heading into the capital.

Officials said that militants may have been taking the bomb to New Delhi to use on Independence Day and that it had probably gone off by accident.

The Press Trust of India quoted intelligence officials as saying Pakistan-based Kashmiri militants had been planning to explode the bomb at the capital's main bus station.

Indian and Pakistani troops also exchanged gunfire along the Kashmir border in one of the most serious clashes between the neighbors since their fruitless peace-seeking summit a month ago.

In Uttar Pradesh state, police said they shot a Pakistani militant to death and arrested two Indians on suspicion they planned to create disturbances. They said they had seized explosives, detonators and timers which were enough to "create a catastrophe".

Reuters contributed to this report.