India yesterday deployed missiles along its frontier with Pakistan as the two nuclear rivals continued with their biggest military build up in 15 years, and prepared for a war that neither side wants.
"Our missile systems are in position," the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, said, but declined to elaborate. Military officials in New Delhi said he was responding to Pakistan deploying medium range ballistic missile batteries along the line of control that divides Kashmir, over which the rival claimants have fought two of their three wars, since independence in 1947.
The missiles possessed by both sides can be armed with nuclear warheads, but it is not known whether such steps have been taken. After the tit-for-tat nuclear tests three years ago, Pakistan retained its first use option of nuclear weapons. India has the conventional military edge over Pakistan and declared it would only exercise a retaliatory, second strike capability.
Tensions between the two adversaries spiralled swiftly into a military build-up after a suicide attack on India's parliament earlier this month that Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
India accused the Pakistani spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence of launching insurgents from the militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammad) and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) who are battling to end Indian rule in Kashmir for the December 13th attack in which 14 people, including the five gunmen died. It demanded that the groups be banned and their leaders handed over to Delhi for trial.
Although Pakistan has frozen the assets of the two groups and placed Jaish-e-Mohammed head, Mr Maulana Masood Azhar, under house arrest, the Indian Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, said Islamabad was making a "mockery" of the affair. Pakistan has taken only cosmetic steps to resolve this impasse and these are inadequate, he added.
"We do not want war, but war is being thrust on us and we will have to face it," the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said at a ceremony to mark his 77th birthday earlier in the week.
This time the fight should be such that it would be the last on the issue of terrorism, he added.
India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring the 12-year separatist campaign in Kashmir which has claimed over 35,000 lives. Pakistan denies the charge but says it offers moral and political support to Kashmiri separatists.
