India expelled Pakistan's ambassador yesterday as cross-border fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbors escalated, forcing thousands of villagers to flee their homes. Both sides used heavy weaponry to fire at each other across the frontier.
The diplomatic move was announced after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee met yesterday with top Cabinet ministers and military and intelligence chiefs to decide India's response to a militant attack in Kashmir that killed 34 people on Tuesday.
The Himalayan region has been at the root of two of the three wars fought by India and Pakistan.
India withdrew its ambassador from Pakistan in December, after a militant attack on the Parliament in New Delhi. As tensions rose, both countries slashed their diplomatic staffs, halted overflight rights for airplanes and ended train service.
Pakistan's ambassador had remained in New Delhi, although the Indian government refused to meet with him. India's External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said yesterday that since New Delhi no longer had an ambassador in Islamabad, the Pakistani ambassador would have to leave.
"For the sake of parity of representation between the two countries, the high commissioner of Pakistan, [who] is currently in India, [will] be required to return to Islamabad," he told reporters.
Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, Pakistan's high commissioner for five years, has been given one week to return to Islamabad.
"It's an unfortunate step, as it obviously will not have a positive impact on the state of relations. But it falls within the sovereign right of India to take any step, whether wise or unwise, and we naturally will respect the decision," Jehangir told state-run Pakistan Television (PTV) by telephone from Delhi.
Pakistan said the expulsion would add to tensions, but urged New Delhi to resolve differences through dialogue.
"Actions like these add to tension, whereas efforts should be in reduction of tension," Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told PTV. "Pakistan, despite this action of India which has disappointed us, we will continue to strive to resolve all issues with India through negotiations and through peaceful means."
Fighting intensified on the border Friday and increased through the night into yesterday morning, witnesses said.
In Indian villages along the frontier, the carcasses of animals lay in the summer heat in abandoned villages, their stench mixing with the smell of used ammunition.
"It's a war," said Bishamber Dass, one of 10,000 people who fled their homes Friday night and was sheltering in a makeshift camp. "The boom of the guns could be heard even at the distance of 5km from the border."
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