THE VANCOUVER SUN, TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2002 A7
India prepares for war against Pakistan
Three killed as armies trade fire across border
NEW DELHI, India — Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan exchanged fire across their border in Kashmir on Monday, and the Indian military reportedly took control of the country's paramilitary forces and merchant marine in a sign of building ten-sion over the disputed Himalayan region.
Early today, three civilians were killed and seven others were wounded when Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchanged fire in Rajouri, a Kashmir district on the international border, said Indian army spokesman Maj. Animesh Trivedi.
Each side in the simmering conflict sought to bring international pressure to bear on the other. India said it asked foreign help in isolating Pakistan, which requested international assistance in starting talks to settle the territorial dispute.
In Washington, the Bush administration announced plans to send Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the region. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the administration was "strongly concerned" about the situation.
India has refused to negotiate until Pakistan stops its alleged support for Islamic militants who have launched attacks on the Indian side of the border in Kashmir. Pakistan denies backing the militants but does support the goal of separating the Indian portion of mainly Muslim Kashmir from Hindu India.
The two countries have sent about one million soldiers to their frontier as the dispute flared anew over Kashmir, which
AMAN SHARMA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Indian soldiers listen to a senior officer demonstrating the use of a machinegun during a training session in the Punjab on Monday.
has provoked two of the wars the countries fought since independence from Britain in 1947.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called on both sides "to exercise maximum restraint to avert a further escalation of tensions," UN spokesman Fred Eck-hard said in New York.
He said Annan also was "very concerned" at the high level of casualties due to persistent firing alone the Line of Control, the 1972 ceasefire line that divides Kashmir.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported India's powerful interior minister, Lal Krishna Advani, said the army had been asked to consult a top secret set of directions from the government about offensive operations,
known as the War Book.
The day-to-day records of past wars and battle plans is so secret that it is handed personally by the civilian authority to the military authority, and is consulted only when the army is asked to prepare for war, a senior army officer told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Press Trust of India quoted Advani as saying the decision to put paramilitary troops and the merchant navy under the military command was "an indication that we are moving in a certain direction."
The latest casualties came hours before India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was to visit the troubled region today.
Associated Press
