Author:
Publication: Reuters
Date: May 21, 2004
URL: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=HUWGNJHVRDBZICRBAEOCFFA?type=worldNews&storyID=5222457
India's army chief said on Friday
that more than 3,000 Muslim militants were ready to slip into Indian Kashmir
from Pakistan.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan
came close to war two years ago over Indian charges that Pakistan supports
rebels fighting New Delhi's rule in Jammu and Kashmir. But violence in
the mountainous region has fallen since a thaw in ties last year.
"As per our information, about 3,000
to 3,500 people in the various camps across the border are ready to infiltrate,"
Indian army chief General N.C. Vij told a news conference.
"There are about 85 to 95 (militant
training) camps, as per the information. They're still there."
But a senior Pakistani army officer
rejected the charges.
"This is totally ludicrous," Major-General
Shaukat Sultan told Reuters in Pakistan.
Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister
designate, said on Thursday he would put top priority on carrying forward
a nascent peace process with Pakistan begun last year between the outgoing
government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Islamabad.
Vij said the Indian army had stepped
up efforts to build a fence across the border to halt incursions.
"The number of terrorists inside
Jammu and Kashmir has dropped to nearly 55 percent to 60 percent of what
it was last year."
Police said eight people, including
six militants, had been killed in separate incidents across Kashmir over
the last day.
Officials say more than 40,000 people
have been killed in the last 15 years of separatist violence in the region.
