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Fernandes, Service chiefs meet

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 28. The Defence Minister, George Fernandes, met the three Service chiefs today even as the artillery firing by Pakistan spread to new sectors on the Jammu and Kashmir border. The weekly meeting was attended by the Defence Secretary, Yogendra Narain.

Pakistan has turned its attention to the Siachen Glacier after targeting the Kargil sector last week. This latest opening up of hostilities has left very few areas along the border untouched by artillery and mortar fire. Besides Siachen, the other sectors where artillery duels have been reported are Batalik-Kargil, Dras-Mushkoh, Keran, Poonch-Rajouri, Nowshera and Sunderbani. While India has responded to each provocation with retaliatory fire, its assault was limited to Pakistan Army posts, Defence Ministry officials here said.

PTI, UNI report:

Mr. Fernandes said intelligence reports suggested that Pakistan's ISI was planning to carry out more terrorist strikes in the country.

He said it would not be proper to say that India and Pakistan were on the brink of war though the forces of the two countries were engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation for quite some time.

Dismissing the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf's statement that infiltration across the LoC had stopped, he said 2,000 to 3,000 terrorists, including those from the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, were waiting to cross over into India.

Describing the situation on the border as ``serious'', he said ``we are on the verge of confrontation... but this does not necessarily mean an all-out war... though the options before us are narrowing down''. Pakistani forces had stepped up artillery shelling and mortar firing along the LoC in the past two days.

The firing was aimed at providing cover for mercenaries and militants to infiltrate into India. This was contrary to Gen. Musharraf's claim that there was no infiltration.

Dismissing Gen. Musharraf's threat to wage a war on Indian soil in case of a conflict, he said, ``India is militarily so powerful and it is known to Pakistanis that they will be overwhelmed.''

He termed Gen. Musharraf's threats as an ``outward manifestation of his inner fears and frustrations.''

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