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Pakistan Blasts "Arrogant" Indian Envoy Recall
ISLAMABAD, Dec 22 (News Agencies) - Pakistan's leader Saturday branded India "very arrogant" for recalling its ambassador and accused India of carrying out massive troop movements along the border where fresh firing broke out.
President Pervez Musharraf said he regretted "the very arrogant and knee-jerk response of the Indian government," which recalled its envoy and severed rail and road links Friday.
But he said during a visit to China that Pakistan would not retaliate.
India recalled its high commissioner from Islamabad - for only the first time since the two countries went to war in 1971 - saying Pakistan had failed to crackdown on groups blamed for a December 13 attack on the Indian parliament.
India said the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad groups, at the behest of Pakistani intelligence, carried out the attack on parliament that left 14 people dead, including the five gunmen.
With tensions escalating between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals, a senior Pakistani military official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that India had moved huge numbers of troops to the border "in a very aggressive posture."
"Indian troops in massive numbers have advanced from their peace locations to forward areas during the last 12 hours along the Line of Control and the international border," said the official who declined to be identified.
The official said Pakistan was taking counter-measures against the "menacing build-up," including increased surveillance and monitoring of the border and beefed-up defenses along the Line of Control.
An Indian army spokesman said the troop movements along the Indo-Pakistani border were only a "precautionary measure" taken because of "heavy Pakistani build-up at a number of places in various sectors from Kashmir to Rajasthan along the international border and the Line of Control."
The Line of Control is the de factor border between the two countries in Kashmir, which is partly held by India and Pakistan and claimed by both.
A Pakistani military spokesman said that Indian and Pakistani troops traded mortar shells and artillery fire across the volatile border Saturday. The two rivals also exchanged shots Wednesday.
Amid the developments, the government in the Pakistan-controlled portion of the Himalayan state was put on a war footing Saturday, official sources said.
The local government ordered all necessary arrangements to be made in case of a serious conflict breaking out, and doctors and medical staff were ordered to return to work and cancel any planned holidays immediately.
In New Delhi, Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani said the decision to recall the envoy from Pakistan was a carefully measured step to make Islamabad "pay the price" for failing to crackdown.
"We said all options were open and we weighed the situation," Advani said in an interview published Saturday in the
Hindustan Times.
"I have always said that we have to fight terrorism alone. Nobody will help us," Advani said, adding that New Delhi had "clinching" evidence of Pakistan's complicity in the attack on parliament.
President George W. Bush said Friday that the United States was "very much involved" in defusing tensions between India and Pakistan, both of which have pledged support to the U.S.-led "war on terrorism."
"A flare-up in that region could really create severe problems for all of us that are engaged in the fight against terror," he said during a roundtable with a small group of reporters.
But he said there was no need to send a special envoy to the region.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947. India last recalled its ambassador during the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan.
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