NEW DELHI, March 8: India on Wednesday conveyed its protest to Pakistan over the proposed construction of the Bhasha dam in Azad Kashmir to which Islamabad responded promptly by rejecting New Delhi’s authority on any part of Jammu and Kashmir that would allow it make that judgement.

The incident happened when Indian foreign ministry’s pointman for Pakistan, Mr Dilip Sinha, summoned Mr Munawwar Bhatti, Pakistan’s deputy high commissioner in New Delhi, when the protest was conveyed. Mr Sinha also used the occasion to thank Pakistan for helping a stranded Indian dhow in its waters on Feb 27.

“The Government of India conveyed through diplomatic channels today to the Government of Pakistan, its protest against the proposed construction of Bhasha dam in territory that is part of the State of Jammu & Kashmir, which is an integral part of India by virtue of its accession to it in 1947,” an Indian statement said.

“The reservoir of this dam, according to media reports, will inundate large parts of land which falls in the northern part of the State of Jammu & Kashmir,” the Indian foreign ministry observed.

India’s disclosure of the details of the meeting to the media apparently caught the Pakistani diplomats off guard.

One of them quoted Mr Bhatti as responding to India’s protest in more or less following words: Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory. Pakistan does not accept India’s sovereignty over any part of Jammu and Kashmir. All decisions concerning riparian and infrastructural facilities are to be decided according to UN resolutions on the matter.

Mr Sinha also told Mr Bhatti that the Indian government appreciated “the humanitarian gesture shown by Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) ship, MSS Rehmat, to an Indian ship Dhow Fateh Salamat on Feb 27, 2006.”

According to the statement, the Indian ship had developed engine trouble about 170 nautical miles south-west of Karachi. MSS Rehmat had provided food and drinking water for those stranded in the Indian ship and towed it to the notional international maritime boundary from where it was brought back to India by an Indian Coast Guard ship.

Kashmiri resistance groups including Pakistan-based JKLF chief Amanullah Khan have protested against the dam which was announced by Preident Gen Pervez Musharraf in January. Its Kashmiri critics say the dam to be built in the Northern Areas, would inundate 32 villages of Diamer District, which has a population of 26,000 and has thousands of kanals of agricultural land. They say more than 125 kilometres of the Karakorum Highway will be submerged in water because of the dam.