MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, October 19, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Pakistan and India wrestled with the details of a historic opening of the Kashmir frontier Wednesday, October 19, with independence-seeking fighters giving quake diplomacy a boost, as a series of aftershocks traumatized survivors 11 days after a devastating quake.

India signaled its cautious approval of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf proposal late Tuesday that Kashmiris should be allowed to cross the Line of Control that divides the Himalayan region and help family members with relief and rebuilding efforts.

"We have decided now we would allow an amount of people coming from across the Line of Control to our part of Kashmir to meet their relatives and assist in the reconstruction effort," Musharraf said in Muzaffarabad, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Welcoming Musharraf's remarks, India said it was waiting for "practical details" of the proposal for the opening of the ceasefire line, which was set in 1949 after the first of the three wars with Pakistan.

Before the earthquake, India had been skeptical of Musharraf's calls for a "soft border" in Kashmir as it accuses Pakistan of sending across militants fighting New Delhi's rule in the Muslim-majority territory.

The October 8 earthquake, which killed more than 41,000 people in Pakistan and 1,300 in India, came amid a peace process between the two countries which have gone to war two times over Kashmir.

In April, there were emotional scenes among Kashmiri families who were reunited after decades apart when Pakistan and India started a "peace bus" linking Srinagar and Muzaffarabad.

Meanwhile, the leading rebel commander fighting Indian rule in Kashmir welcomed Pakistan's proposal to open the disputed border in the wake of the earthquake and called on India to agree.

Syed Salahuddin, the head of Kashmir's largest militant group Hizbul Mujahedin, said the rebels never accepted the Line of Control which divides the bitterly disputed Himalayan territory.

"We welcome this proposal from the depth of our heart," Salahuddin, who operates from Pakistani Kashmir, told AFP.

"We have never and we will never accept the Line of Control as a dividing line. This line separated families," Salahuddin said.

"We have seen that India has welcomed the proposal but we believe India will not implement it. There is no sincerity in the Indian welcome," Salahuddin said.

Separately, Yasin Malik, head of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front which has renounced violence and wants the region to be independent of both India and Pakistan, called on the two countries' leaders to negotiate immediately.

"They can help them on an SOS basis," Malik, who is based on the Indian side, told AFP as he visited a hospital in Rawalpindi in Pakistan.

Asked about concerns that Kashmiri fighters seeking independence and Indian spies could take advantage of an open border, Malik said: "Both the Indian prime minister and the Pakistani president need to discuss directly so their sensitivity will not get hurt ... and they will find out an agreement on this sensitive issue."

"Right now this is an emergency. In this kind of situation, you can work out a temporary plan for one month or 15 days. There must be that kind of relaxation so that they can help them," Malik said.

Three million Kashmiris are left homeless after October 8 quake. (Reuters)

The diplomatic statements coincided with scary natural pulses, with the United Nations saying fresh tremors were spreading fear among more than three million people left homeless and dependent on international aid by the October 8 quake, as well as causing dangerous landslides in Kashmir and Pakistan.

In Pakistan, a 5.8 magnitude shock was felt in the capital Islamabad and other northern cities at 7:34 am (0234 GMT), the seismological department said.

Less than an hour later, a 5.4 magnitude tremor rumbled through, AFP said.

The military in Muzaffarabad, the razed capital of Pakistani Kashmir, warned that the fresh aftershocks could cause buildings damaged by the original earthquake to collapse.

Across the frontier in India's sector of divided Kashmir, a string of tremors shortly after midnight (1830 GMT) Wednesday sparked panic.

"People rushed out of their houses and took temporary refuge in open fields in Srinagar and other towns," police said, referring to Indian's Kashmir's summer capital.

"Aftershocks continue to traumatize the survivors of the 8 October earthquake... and have triggered further landslides in already remote and high altitude areas," the UN Emergency Response Centre in Islamabad said.