India yesterday geared up for tough diplomacy with Pakistan as the guns fell silent in Kashmir after the retreat of hundreds of infiltrators from Indian-held territory.
"We have continued to say that we had a particular vision of relations with Pakistan, but the territory of trust and the Line of Control (LOC) has been transgressed," a spokesman for the Indian Foreign Ministry, Mr Raminder Singh Jassal, said in New Delhi.
The Indian Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, said on Saturday that the last infiltrator had withdrawn from its side of the LOC.
India has ended a two-month offensive to flush out what it says were a mix of Pakistani troops and Muslim militants. Pakistan says they were freedom fighters opposed to Indian rule.
The bodies of two Pakistani soldiers killed in fighting with India were returned to Islamabad yesterday.
Pakistan's official APP news agency said the pair had been killed on the Line of Control but their bodies were then taken deeper inside India by Indian forces.
"Their bodies were taken away by Indian army men on retreat in clashes in Kargil sector, when the former penetrated into the Pakistani side of the border," APP said.
India's army chief, Gen Ved Prakash Malik, said New Delhi still needed to confirm the infiltrators had pulled out.
"It's not easy. First of all we have to send patrols, which will physically verify that those positions have been vacated. We will also use helicopters," Gen Malik said.
A military spokesman, Col Bikram Singh, told a briefing that by first light today Indian troops would be able to reach regions close to the LOC in the Mushkoh valley to ascertain if the infiltrators had left. He said they had withdrawn from all other regions.
The national security adviser, Mr Brajesh Mishra, said India would have to consider "military and diplomatic measures" to ensure that such incursions did not occur again.
"Of course, we will do a post mortem to find out what went wrong and what lessons we have learnt from the Kargil episode," Mr Mishra told the Hindustan Times.
The Indian Foreign Minster, Mr Jaswant Singh, said Pakistan must endorse the "inviolability" of the LOC as a precondition for talks to start. Mr Jassal said Pakistan would also need to fulfil a "sequence of steps" before bilateral talks could resume.