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Musharraf meets top brass as India beefs up border forces

AFP, Islamabad
President General Pervez Musharraf has summoned a meeting of his cabinet and the National Security Council (NSC), a top decision-making body, to review the escalation of border tensions with India.
Musharraf is to chair a joint meeting of the cabinet and the NSC on Wednesday to discuss the situation, Information Minister Nisar Memon told the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.
Memon said the president would also consult political leaders "to take the nation into confidence regarding the situation arising out of the recent escalation of tension on the borders."
And Musharraf will also brief editors and columnists of the national press on the "unprovoked Indian firing and shelling" along the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir, as well as Kashmir's boundary with Pakistan, he added.
Foreign ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan earlier yesterday called for increased international efforts to make India "see reason" and begin negotiations over the brewing crisis.
"We hope the international community will increase further its efforts
considering the hostile postures adopted by India and convince India to see reason and come to the negotiating table for discussions and dialogue," he said.
Khan's comments came as Indian and Pakistani troops fought a fourth day of artillery duels on the border in the disputed state of Kashmir.
Pallab Bhattacharya from New Delhi adds: A day after stepping up its diplomatic offensive against Pakistan, India made an important operational move by transferring the paramilitary forces deployed along Pakistan border under the army's command.
The decision to place the paramilitary units, including BSF and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), under the army's command shifting from the direct control of Home Ministry was taken at a meeting of cabinet committee on security chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Delhi Sunday night.
The meeting also decided to transfer the Coast Guard under the command of the Indian Navy.
External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told media persons after the over two-hour meeting that the decisions to place the paramilitary forces and the Coast Guard under the command of the army and the navy were taken as part of the preparations.
Indian paramilitary personnel are deployed in parts of India's International Border and Line of Control which divide India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir state.
Singh said if there is any firing or mortar attack by Pakistan on the International Border and Line of Control, India would take immediate retaliatory action.
Asked if the latest moves made by Indian on the operational side are indicative of its preparation for going to a war with Pakistan, Singh cryptically said "you are reading what you have to read, I am doing what I have to do."
Gen V P Malik, the former Army Chief who had led India to a successful campaign in Kargil against Pakistan-backed intruders in 1999, told a television news channel Sunday night that the decisions to place paramilitary forces and coast guard under army and navy command are taken when a war is considered imminent.
On Saturday last, the cabinet committee on security asked Pakistan to recall its High Commissioner to India Ashraf Jehangir Qazi in what was considered a step-up in New Delhi's diplomatic offensive against Islamabad for the latter's aiding and abetting terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.
Jaswant Singh indicated India might consider more measures to
mount the pressure on Pakistan, including withdrawal of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) treatment to Pakistan in trade.
Meanwhile, Vajpayee is expected to pay a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir from today to meet senior officers of the army and other security agencies.
AFP from New Delhi adds: India is preparing for all-out war against Pakistan over Kashmir, analysts said yesterday, as troops on both sides of the disputed border again pounded each other with artillery shells and militants launched more attacks on Indian army bases.
"They are preparing for war," said political analyst Raja Mohan, a former member of the National Security Council, a think tank that advises government on military matters.
"These are steps towards war," he added, referring to an increased mobilisation announced by the government late Sunday following a meeting between Vajpayee and his security advisers.
Other defence and security analysts quoted in the Indian press yesterday concurred that the increased mobilisation -- bringing all paramilitary forces in border areas under the control of the army -takes India a step closer to war.
"This meets a key requirement of war preparedness and this is a clear signal to Pakistan and the rest of the world that India means business," defence analyst Brahma Chellaney told the Hindustan Times.
The past week has seen a surge in attacks by militants in Indian administered Kashmir, starting with a massacre last Tuesday at Kaluchak military camp, near the southern winter capital of Jammu.
In that attack, three militants killed 32 people before they were themselves gunned down. Most of the dead were the wives and children of soldiers.
The slaughter triggered a sharp deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan and saw Islamabad's high commissioner (ambassador) to New Delhi being given his marching orders on Saturday.
On Sunday, three soldiers and a paramilitary trooper were killed in an attack on an army camp in Chasana at Reasi, near the southern town of Udhampur.
The bloodletting continued yesterday, with police announcing that two Indian soldiers were killed in the early hours of the morning when armed militants attacked two security camps. The first attack took place on the base of the 38 Rashtriya Rifles, the Indian army's counter-insurgency force, at Manjakot, Rajouri, 171 kilometres from Jammu, around 2:00 am local time , police said.
They said three militants opened fire on the camp, killing one soldier and injuring two others. Other soldiers returned fire and fighting continued for an hour before the militants escaped in the darkness.