India's interior minister on Sunday ruled out dialogue with Pakistan as attacks by suspected Islamic militant flared up in Kashmir, killing 12 people in 24 hours.
The attacks, which began Saturday afternoon, came as tensions had begun to ease along the border in Kashmir that divides India and Pakistan.
Children, Hindu pilgrims and police officers were among those killed in the grenade explosions and gunfire, a senior security official in Kashmir said on condition of anonymity. Indian security forces also killed five Islamic militants in two separate gunbattles in southwestern Kashmir on Sunday, officials said.
"The terrorist infrastructure that Pakistan has built up inside its country and in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has to be dismantled," Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani said. "Unless that is done, there is no point in any dialogue."
India and Pakistan have amassed some 1 million troops in the disputed Himalayan province after a Dec. 13 terror attack on the Indian Parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed Islamic militants.
That attack, as well as others by suspected militants in the Indian-held portion of Kashmir, has brought the nuclear-armed neighbors to the brink of war.
Yet in a sign that tensions along the border are decreasing, Indian army officials said Sunday that soldiers and officers had been allowed to go on leave for the first time since December.
Still, Indian officials say Pakistan's promises of curbing terrorist groups are having little effect, and New Delhi has refused to discuss troop withdrawals until the attacks end.
India says Pakistan backs the Islamic guerrillas who move across the Kashmir frontier to stage bombings and armed assaults on civilians and security forces in Indian territory. Islamabad says it gives only moral and diplomatic support to rebels who are fighting for Kashmir's independence.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in the 12-year insurgency. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over.
(China Daily June 17, 2002)
