NEW DELHI, July 31: India said on Wednesday rebel incursions into disputed Kashmir had fallen slightly in recent months after Pakistan promised to stop the flow.
New Delhi has set a permanent end to infiltration in the bloodied region as a condition to ending a seven-month military standoff with Pakistan.
“If we compare with the past years, this year the infiltration has somewhat reduced but has not stopped, it still continues,” Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani told parliament.
Advani, who also heads the home ministry, said security forces had prevented several intrusion attempts by either killing or arresting intruders along the 740-km Line of Control dividing mountainous Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
Advani said there were still enough rebels in Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state, to cause violence.
“There are already so many infiltrators here that they can maintain the same level of violence for at least the next three to four months,” Advani told the upper house of parliament.
Indian opposition parties wanted the government to say how it would tackle militancy in Kashmir and relations with Pakistan.
“Can our armed forces remain in a state of mobilisation indefinitely?” Manmohan Singh, senior leader of the main opposition Congress party, asked in the upper house.—Reuters
