India indicated yesterday it was considering military strikes inside Pakistan across the line of control that divides Kashmir state between the two nuclear rivals.
"When it comes to punishing the enemy we will hold back nothing," the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, said in reference to Pakistan-based Muslim separatists engaged in a 12-year insurgency. He was holding his first press conference since being reinstated, seven months after he resigned following an arms bribery scandal.
Mr Fernandes did not rule out a policy of "hot pursuit" inside Pakistani territory.
"The army will act decisively and with no holds barred," he said a day after India destroyed 11 military posts in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir with mortars and grenade launchers. Indian troops also claimed they had killed 30 terrorists trying to infiltrate across the line of control in the state's southern Jammu region.
Mr Fernandes described Monday's strikes as "punitive". But he denied India had resorted to artillery fire.
The minister's remarks came hours before the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, arrived in New Delhi from Islamabad on a day-long stop-over. The visit is an opportunity for talks on the military and political situation in Afghanistan and on the vexatious Kashmir dispute which Washington considers to be one of the most dangerous in the world.
The Deputy US Secretary of State, Mr Richard Armitage, said that 12 years ago the former CIA director, William Webster, had dubbed Kashmir the "most dangerous place in the world" because it was contested by two nuclear-powers who were "shooting, shouting and glaring at one another". That assessment still applied today, he added.
After Monday's border firing President Bush called on Islamabad and Delhi to cool tensions. "It is important that India and Pakistan stand down during our activities in Afghanistan and, for that matter, forever," Mr Bush told reporters in Washington.
In his meetings with the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behrai Vajpayee, and other senior officials Mr Powell is expected to come under pressure to include Pakistan-backed militant groups operating in Kashmir in Washington's war against terrorism. In Islamabad, Mr Powell and the Pakistani President, Gen Musharraf, confirmed that the two countries had agreed to work together to bring to justice those responsible for the September 11th US attacks.
Officials said Mr Vajpayee will tell Mr Powell that India has reached the end of its tether and will take suitable measures on its own to stamp out continuing terrorist activity in Kashmir. He is also expected to inform Mr Powell that while India remains an active partner in the global coalition against terrorism, it will not tolerate Pakistan which is responsible for fomenting terrorism, being rewarded.
"Pakistan that is responsible for nurturing terrorists, cannot suddenly become the solution to the problem of terrorism," the Indian Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, said.
