KASHMIR: Heavy artillery firing erupted yesterday between Indian and Pakistani troops on the borders of the desert state of Rajasthan, following an overnight skirmish that left two people dead, an Indian army spokesman said. The firing lasted for about eight hours.
The incident was the first exchange of fire across the Rajasthan border since the two South Asian rivals massed about one million troops along their common frontiers in December in the wake of an attack by Pakistan-based Islamic militants on India's parliament.
"There has been intense crossborder firing in the western sector," the spokesman said. "Indian troops have retaliated with artillery fire and damaged Pakistan's Al Badhar border post."
Yesterday's "flag meeting" - a brief daily meeting at the border between military commanders from both sides - was likely to focus on "the sudden flare-up of tensions", the spokesman said.
A police official said the tensions were sparked off on Tuesday in the Raisinghnagar area, 450 km from here, when India's Border Security Force (BSF) troops patrolling the border saw an intruder trying to enter Indian territory from Pakistan.
While the BSF officials were questioning the intruder, Pakistani Rangers opened fire, killing an Indian officer. The BSF troops stationed along the border retaliated and the exchange of fire continued for about four hours, the official added. The intruder was killed during the cross-border firing. He was identified as a Pakistani ranger named Magtual Ahmed.
An Indian defence ministry spokesman said yesterday: "The situation is completely calm now."
The incident came as the guns, which had sent shells scudding across the valleys of the disputed state of Kashmir for almost five weeks, had begun falling silent amid easing tensions between the two nuclear rivals.
A defence ministry official in southern Kashmir said yesterday that shelling by Pakistani troops of Indian targets in Kashmir has dropped by some 90 per cent in the past two days.
Soldiers from the rival armies have been engaged in fiery artillery duels in Kashmir since a May 14th attack by Pakistan-based militants on Indian soldiers and their families near Jammu, Kashmir's winter capital.
India said yesterday there had been a big drop in the number of militants crossing over from Pakistan in the disputed region of Kashmir, a key Indian condition to end a six-month military standoff at the border.
"So far as trans-border terrorism is concerned, there has been considerable decline," the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, said.
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 has long accused its nuclear rival of sponsoring "cross-border terrorism" by sending Islamic militants to attack targets in Indian Kashmir and elsewhere in the country.
Pakistan denies the charge, but President Pervez Musharraf has nonetheless promised to curb militants and prevent them infiltrating across a military ceasefire line dividing Kashmir.
"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 normalising and then we can do the job of calling back our army," Mr Fernandes told the Hindi language Aaj Tak television channel in an interview.
India also selected an envoy for Islamabad, but he has not been sent there yet.
A retired officer noted that the approaching monsoon could prevent a war. The monsoon reaches areas on the India-Pakistan border early next month and ends in September.