Pakistan hits back at India

New appeal for Kashmir dialogue

An Indian police officer checks the identity card of a veiled Kashmiri woman at a checkpoint in Srinagar

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Against a backdrop of continued violence in Kashmir, Pakistan has fired its latest salvo in the war of words with India, hitting out at New Delhi's verbal attack over the disputed region.

A statement from the foreign ministry said Islamabad was "disappointed at anti-Pakistan remarks" made by Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Defense Minister George Fernandes in parliament on Tuesday during New Delhi's first formal response to a weekend massacre of at least 27 Hindus in Jammu city in Kashmir.

Advani and Fernandes both accused Pakistan of continuing to send militants across the Line of Control (LOC) into Indian Kashmir despite promises of a crackdown on infiltration by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf earlier this year.

"The Indian government knows very well that Pakistan is neither sponsoring nor encouraging any cross-LOC movement in Jammu and Kashmir," the Pakistani statement said.

"It is time that the Indian leadership gives up temptation of blaming Pakistan at every possible opportunity to hide its own ineptitude," it said.

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The massacre of Hindu slum dwellers in Jammu, the winter capital of Indian-ruled Kashmir, on Saturday had triggered fears of a new row with Pakistan, just when tensions had eased somewhat between the two nuclear neighbors.

That incident was followed by further violence this week including a massive explosion that ripped through a government building in Kashmir on Wednesday, killing at least three and critically wounding nine others. (Full story)

The attack occurred in Kashmir's Anantnag district, 80 km southeast of Srinagar, the summer capital of the state and followed the wounding of 13 people on a grenade assault at a crowded market place on Tuesday, also near Srinagar.

During Tuesday's parliamentary debate, India upped the pressure on Pakistan, with Advani calling on Islamabad to tear down militant infrastructure as well as halt infiltration into Indian-controlled Kashmir before tension between the two rivals could ease.

"The issue is not just infiltration. The issue is the infrastructure that they have built up for cross-border terrorism -- terrorist camps, training, money, arms which are given," Advani said.

Calling it a "horrendous incident," Advani did not specifically blame Pakistan for Saturday's attack, but implied that Islamabad was responsible in an indirect way because, he said, of its traditional support and aid for militants operating in Kashmir.

Fernandes was quoted by local newspaper reports as saying "this terrorism will not last even a minute if Pakistan does not want it."

Call for dialogue

Pakistan has condemned Saturday's attack, which comes ahead of a fresh round of diplomacy efforts to further push the South Asian neighbors towards talks over Kashmir -- a dispute that has plagued healthy relations for more than a decade.

Last week the U.S. government said there has been a "significant decline" in cross-border militant incursions into India from Pakistan but added that it was now up to Islamabad to ensure that the decline was made permanent.

Meanwhile, Pakistan also called on India to enter into dialogue over the disputed Himalayan region.

"Such a policy would also remove the threat of aggression by India against Pakistan and enable the governments of the two countries to devote their energies to the task of socio-economic development of their respective peoples," Wednesday's statement said.

India-Pakistan tensions peaked in May when more than 1 million troops were posted along their shared border and the Kashmiri Line of Control, which divides the disputed region between them.

Parliament raid

Paramilitary troops patrol the shanty town where the attack took place

A December raid on India's parliament and a May attack on an Indian army camp near Jammu stoked the tensions, which were only eased after Islamabad bowed to intense U.S.-led diplomatic pressure and pledged to stop guerrillas crossing the porous border into Indian Kashmir.

Since 1989, a Muslim separatist revolt has raged in Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority province in predominantly Hindu India.

New Delhi has accused Pakistan of providing funding and training to militants it accuses of carrying out a series of attacks against Indian targets, including a daring raid on the Indian parliament.

Pakistan denies the Indian charges saying that it gives only moral support to groups fighting what it calls a "freedom struggle" in the disputed Muslim majority region of Kashmir.

The Himalayan region has been the trigger for two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since the two were created by Britain's partition of the subcontinent at independence in 1947.