NEW DELHI, Dec 26: India said on Wednesday it had positioned its guided missile batteries and dismissed Pakistan’s crackdown on hardline groups as “cosmetic”.
The army moved batteries of its surface Prithvi missiles from their distant southern Indian facilities to the border with Pakistan in East Punjab.
The missiles have a range of 150 kilometres and are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s cabinet committee on security (CCS) met in the evening to discuss further diplomatic action against Pakistan.
However, any final decisions were postponed by at least 24 hours in the absence of Defence Minister George Fernandes, who was visiting troops in held Kashmir.
Fernandes told the Press Trust of India that India’s array of missiles were “in position”.
Official sources said Wednesday’s CCS meeting had considered downgrading the Pakistan High Commission in India, withdrawing most-favoured-nation trade status and banning PIA from Indian airspace.
India has already recalled its High Commissioner to Islamabad and announced the termination of cross-border bus and rail links from Jan 1.
The public response from New Delhi to the Pakistan crackdown was dismissive.
“The kind of trickery such as changing names, simply changing headquarters from one place to another and the cosmetic seizure of assets is really to make a mockery of the gravity of the situation,” Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said while talking to reporters after the CCS meeting.
“We have all information regarding military movement inside Pakistan and we are fully prepared.”
Fernandes said the massing of Pakistani soldiers was an inadvertent display of Islamabad’s guilty conscience.
“On Dec 13, our parliament was attacked and from Dec 14 their soldiers were massing on borders because the thought must have been on their minds that India may not rest until it avenged the attack on parliament,” Fernandes said.
Speaking to soldiers on the Siachen glacier, the defence minister stopped short of saying India could go to war.
“I cannot say much now but when the time comes there will be a huge responsibility on your shoulders,” Fernandes said.
Indian Prime Minister Atal behari Vajpayee said on Tuesday that India was being pushed towards a war with Pakistan.—AFP
