India says it was forced to retaliate against a Pakistani attack Monday VIDEO India's top general tells CNN's Satinder Bindra he's cautious about the peace deal (July 13) Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Kasra Naji looks at Pakistani PM Sharif's decision to withdraw (July 12) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K MESSAGE BOARD: India-Pakistan relations

July 13, 1999
Web posted at: 2:00 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT)

In this story: Indian officers caught off guard Pakistani opposition leader visits U.N. Death toll tops 1,000 RELATED STORIES, SITES

KARGIL, India -- Pakistan and India exchanged fierce artillery fire along their disputed Kashmir border Monday night, just one day after agreeing to a de facto cease-fire.

The accord reached between senior Indian and Pakistani army officers on Sunday called for Islamic militants to withdraw from high mountain posts they occupied in India-held parts of Kashmir.

But Pakistani guns opened up Monday night along at least two regions where the militants were pulling back. The militants are moving toward the Pakistani side of the 1972 Line of Control (LOC), which divides the Himalayan region.

Sunday's cease-fire agreement came one week after Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif promised U.S. President Clinton his country would take "concrete steps" to end the fighting, which has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 combatants since May.

Indian officers caught off guard

In a televised speech Monday night, Sharif suggested that the withdrawal of the militants from Kashmir was not defeat, since the world's attention was not focused on the region.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif defended his decision to withdraw Islamic forces from the Indian side of Kashmir

"Nobody can suppress the Kashmiris' struggle for freedom," Sharif said.

India has refused to enter talks on the status of Kashmir until all the Islamic militants had left Indian territory.

Earlier Monday, Indian army officers on the front reported that Islamic fighters were leaving their positions.

Indian officials said they had given Pakistan until Friday to ensure they had left. However, Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Azis said Sunday the pullback would take a week or two.

The plan called for both sides to refrain from airstrikes, artillery fire and ground assaults.

But Indian officers and artillery men were caught off guard Monday night, removing tarpaulins from guns to return Pakistani fire.

Pakistani protesters say Sharif surrendered to Indian demands

Along a 10-kilometer (six-mile) narrow stretch of winding road near the front-line town of Kargil, shells landed every 30 seconds for at least 30 minutes.

The Indian army said it was under orders not to fire at retreating forces, but to retaliate if fired upon.

"We will not fire first," an Indian officer told the Associated Press before Monday's shelling began. "But if they hit us, we will not sit and watch."

Pakistani opposition leader visits U.N.

Meanwhile, the leader of Pakistan's main opposition party called on the United Nations and United States to compel India to solve Kashmir dispute through U.N. resolutions.

"This is the unfinished part of the agenda of the partition of British-ruled India into India and Pakistan," said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-i-Islami, or the Islamic Movement.

He told a new conference at the United Nations that he had come to the United States to push for a final solution to the problem, which he said can't be handled by India and Pakistan alone.

Kashmir, which has a Muslim majority, was split between Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan after both countries gained independence from Britain in 1947.

The United Nations adopted a resolution in 1948 call for a referendum in Kashmir to determine whether it should be a part of India or Pakistan, but India has refused to acknowledge that Kashmir is a disputed territory.

Death toll tops 1,000

Of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since gaining independence, two have been over Kashmir.

In the latest flare-up, which began in May, India accused Pakistan of backing the Islamic guerrilla incursion in an effort to change the disputed border line, which was drawn by the United Nations.

New Delhi claims Pakistani troops are fighting alongside the rebels. Pakistan denies any support for the separatists, saying they are Islamic fighters seeking independence from Hindu majority India.

"They are the people of Kashmir," said Pakistani Brig. Rashid Qureshi. "They just live there."

India said over the weekend that 333 of its military personnel had died in the fighting and 520 had been wounded. It estimated that 697 had died on the enemy side.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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