NEW DELHI, June 14: India condemned Friday’s car-bomb attack at the US Consulate in Karachi as an act of terror and indicated that its words of sympathy for the victims would propel rather than deter it from easing its standoff with Pakistan.

“It is very sad and very regrettable incident and we condemn it fully. This is yet another terrorist activity by suicide bomb variety that has taken place in Karachi,” External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told reporters after a crucial meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in New Delhi.

Saying that he was grieved and unhappy over the incident, he said the people of India sympathise with the victims and sent their condolences to the families of those killed in the incident.

Mr Singh, who was briefing the media on the cabinet level deliberations which are mainly believed to have considered the way forward with Islamabad, said the Indian government had decided to pursue a US proposal to install surveillance sensors along the Line of Control to monitor cross-border infiltration.

The sensors are based entirely on American technology and will have to be physically installed near the LoC. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had made this proposal during his visit to New Delhi on Tuesday.

“There was a proposal about sensors to be placed on the LoC. But this is a matter that will now be discussed between the ministry of defence and the government of the United States of America, the technical parts of it, how it is to be done, who does it, etc.” Mr Singh said.

His other comments appeared to hint at a further clutch of measures to improve relations with Islamabad, although these would seem to be at variance, at least in spirit, with the remarks earlier on Friday of the Bharatiya Janata Party President Jana Krishnamurthy who held forth on his familiar bellicose stance towards Pakistan.

Press Trust of India quoted Mr Krishnamurthy as telling reporters in the eastern city of Bhubaneshwar that unless Pakistan stops its proxy war and cross border terrorism, India would not withdraw its forces from the border.

On India’s ties with the United States, he said: “Instead of India coming under American pressure, the reality is that the USA has come under the influence of India.”

Mr Krishnamurthy said that unless President Pervez Musharraf delivered on his oft-repeated promises of stopping cross border terrorism, India would not lower its guard. “We want his actions to match his promises,” the BJP chief stated, while adding that India cannot be made to wait indefinitely by the Pakistani General.

Reflecting a hug and duck relationship with the United States, Mr Singh too said India had categorically ruled out allowing any foreign forces to monitor the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir.

“There is no proposal for any forces other than the Indian forces to be on the LoC,” Mr Singh said.

The CCS meeting was the first since India announced various goodwill gestures in response to Pakistan’s assurances to help end infiltration permanently.

Measures taken by India to ease tensions in the subcontinent include recalling its warships to their bases. India has also lifted the ban on Pakistani aircraft to fly over Indian airspace.

Diplomats expect India to effect a partial easing of the military alert in the state of Rajasthan and Punjab as a sequel to its other recent positive steps.

Significantly, as if everyone was now doing a postmortem on the recent war hysteria, Defence Minister George Fernandes was quoted as saying that India could have launched a strike against Pakistan but “we were never at that point”.

“We could have launched a strike. But we were never at that point. At any given time if the need had arisen, the Army could have struck,” Mr Fernandes said in an interview to The Week.

About apprehensions in Pakistan that India was close to a strike, he said that showed the panic in their ranks. “We were never at a point where we would have pulled the trigger”.

On the proposal for joint patrolling of the LoC to stop infiltration, he said: “These things will take time. I don’t think it is an immediate possibility. We have to do a lot of confidence-building before we reach that stage”.

He said knowing the terrain, joint patrolling indicated that both sides go about it jointly, taking up responsibility to see that there is no militant activity.

“At the moment, our troops are eyeball to eyeball. At one end our men are dying at the hands of terrorists and at the other we also have terrorists who are coming in and our troops are fighting them,” he said adding joint patrolling could be undertaken only when there was a relationship built on confidence between the soldiers of the two sides.

However, PTI in dispatch from Jammu said the exchange of fire and shelling between Indian and Pakistani troops along the Line of Control and International Border in the region has reduced since Thursday evening.

It quoted official sources as saying that barring some shelling and small arms firing in some sectors along the Indo-Pakistan border, the situation remained peaceful in other sectors during the last 18 hours, they said.

However, in Laam area of Noushera sector in Rajouri district one woman was injured when Pakistani troops targeted some forward posts and interior areas with 30 HE-bombs from midnight.

Some shells fired from across the border also fell near Kashmiri Kulla post in Mangalnar area of Rajouri district on Friday. Two houses were damaged due to Pakistan’s shelling at Noniyal village of the district.

Mortar shells fired from across the IB in Nawapind and Gharan areas of R S Pura sector and Khora village in Samba sector last night did not cause any damage on the Indian side, the sources said.

Shelling from across the border was also reported in areas of Pansar, Manyari, Chorgali and Kathua in Hiranagar sector of Kathua district early Friday morning. However, it stopped later after retaliatory action by Indian troops.

Intermittent small arms firing exchange took place between the two sides at some places along IB, they said.