India Rebuffs Pakistan on Talks

The Indian government Friday rejected calls by Pakistan to hold talks to end their military standoff after troops traded heavy fire across the disputed region of Kashmir.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who has ordered the biggest military buildup on the border since the last war with Pakistan in 1971, said talks with Islamabad had proved futile.

“They [Pakistan] keep saying the leaders of the two countries should meet. Meet for what? Do we meet for discussing the weather or some business?” Vajpayee said at a party conference in New Delhi.

Vajpayee’s remarks came as troops exchanged mortar and heavy machine gun fire at several points along the so-called Line of Control that divides the Himalayan region between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

An Indian defense official said three civilians, including a 4-year-old child, had died in the Poonch district northwest of Jammu in overnight cross-border firing by Pakistani soldiers.

“Stocks of fodder of some border families in the area caught fire due to enemy mortar fire,” he added.

Across the frontier in Pakistan, a soldier was killed by Indian machine gun fire near the border town of Sialkot, witnesses and military officials said. The firing began late Thursday and continued through Friday morning.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar said he hoped to hold talks with India’s national security advisor, Brajesh Mishra, during a conference in Munich, Germany, this weekend.

“Our goal really is to revive, recommence and strengthen dialogue with India in order to peacefully resolve Kashmir and other issues,” Sattar said.

Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes said Pakistani troops continue to fire across the border to provide cover for Islamic militants sneaking into the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

“There is no other reason [for the firing] unless they have ammunition which they want to burn. Knowing their financial situation, they are not in a position to burn ammunition,” the United News of India news agency quoted him as saying in New Delhi, the capital.

Fernandes said there had been a slight drop in the number of rebels crossing into Indian-ruled Kashmir, but he added that it was not significant and that New Delhi would not withdraw its troops from the border until infiltration ended fully, the news agency said.

Indian officials and military analysts also point out that numbers traditionally taper off at this time of year when snow closes mountain passes and make conditions harsh.

Fifteen people, including three children, died in separate incidents of violence elsewhere in Kashmir during the last 24 hours. Police said three children died Thursday while playing with a grenade they found in a meadow in the Udhampur district.

An activist of the pro-India People’s Democratic Party was among those killed by suspected guerrillas along with his bodyguard in the Baramulla district.

Four militants of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the two separatist groups blamed by India for a Dec. 13 attack on its Parliament, were shot dead by security forces at Surankote in the Poonch district, the news agency said.