Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday offered joint patrols with Pakistan of their disputed border in Kashmir which is at the center of a dangerous military standoff between the nuclear rivals.

"If Pakistan decides that it will not support infiltration then both countries can set up a joint patrolling mechanism. This proposal can be considered," the Indian premier said.

India claims that Pakistan armed and funded militants operating in the Indian zone of Kashmir and has demanded that this stop before any peace talks can begin.

"For verification India and Pakistan can have an agreement of joint patrolling," he said.

Vajpayee was speaking in Almaty where he was taking part in a regional summit which was also attended by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

The two men did not meet face to face, amid intense efforts to bring them to the negotiating table and head off war.

Reuters from Islamabad says: Pakistan rejected an Indian proposal for joint patrols along the disputed Kashmir border to stem the infiltration of militants, saying it was "unlikely to work."

"The proposal is not new," a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. "Given the state of Pakistan-India relations, mechanisms for joint patrolling are unlikely to work."

India and Pakistan have massed more than a million troops along their borders amid fears that tension could trigger a fourth war between the nuclear-armed foes.

Meanwhile, Indian and Pakistani troops traded heavy fire yesterday after their leaders failed at an Asian security summit to ease fears of war between the nuclear-armed rivals.

An Indian defence official said the two armies exchanged over night fire along their frontier but it was a "routine exchange," limited to heavy machineguns and sporadic use of mortars, with no casualties or damage on the Indian side.

Pakistan government officials said two people were wounded yesterday morning near Sialkot, on the boundary that separates Indian-ruled Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan's Punjab province.

That area on the Punjab plains has been especially hard hit in the recent bout of shelling.

Witnesses said Indian and Pakistani troops were exchanging heavy mortar and machinegun fire along the boundary, causing people in the area to flee to relief centres set up by the government in the nearby city of Sialkot.

"There are no casualties, but our houses are being destroyed," a resident of Pondran village said. "Many houses, stored with large quantities of hay after the recent wheat harvest, caught fire in our village when hit by Indian mortar bombs overnight."

The Civil Defence Department has been organising air raid drills in Punjab towns this week, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported. The city public works department in Multan has been ordered to dig trenches for people to take shelter in.

In Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, police said Indian troops intensified mortar fire in the Samani sector yesterday morning, but there were no reports of any casualties or damage.