Pakistan slams India as navy dead buried
Pakistan slams India as navy dead buried
KARACHI (Agencies): Pakistan on Thursday buried its dead from the downing of a navy patrol plane by India and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif turned up the rhetoric on what he called New Delhi's "barbaric" and "cowardly" act.
"It was a very barbaric act and I think it was also a very cowardly act," Sharif told reporters after offering Islamic prayers at the somber funeral ceremony for the 16 officers and sailors killed in the incident.
Sharif also said Tuesday's downing of the reconnaissance plane by Indian jets near a disputed stretch of border in marshes near the Arabian Sea would make peace talks between the nuclear- capable countries more difficult.
"It will complicate the matter," Sharif said when asked how the incident would affect peace talks, already set back by the rivals' recent dispute in divided Kashmir.
"This is a very serious violation of all principles, all international laws and agreements," he said after the emotional ceremony for the crew at a Karachi naval base where the flower- covered and flag-draped coffins were displayed.
In New Delhi, Defense Minister George Fernandes said he did not believe India and Pakistan were on the brink of war, but added peace talks could not resume until the tension died down.
"I don't think the situation is spiraling out of control," he told reporters. "We are not on the brink of war. I don't think talks can start until the situation improves."
The downing of the Pakistani plane also brought a vow of revenge from a Kashmiri militant group on Thursday.
"Mujahideen (holy warriors) will definitely take revenge from India and the revenge would be such that India will remember for years to come," Sayed Salahuddin, the supreme commander of Hizb- ul-Mujahideen, said in a statement.
Salahuddin, who heads one of the largest groups fighting Indian rule of Kashmir, said the air attack was "an act of cowardice".
The incident came a month after India and Pakistan were close to the brink of their fourth war after Pakistani infiltrators captured strategic heights on the Indian side of northern Kashmir and New Delhi launched air and ground attacks to flush them out.
Sharif disputed New Delhi statements that the plane was downed in Indian territory after acting in an aggressive manner.
"I think they shot down a plane which had no capability of doing anything aggressive and it didn't violate Indian airspace, So it was very cowardly," he said.
India says the French-made Berguet Atlantique plane was shot down when it strayed into its territory, while Islamabad says it was on a training mission and was fired upon inside Pakistan two km from the border with India.
Pakistan flew military attaches from more than a dozen embassies out to the crash site on Thursday, a day after Pakistan said it fired missiles at Indian aircraft attempting to approach the area. It denied a New Delhi charge that it fired on helicopters carrying journalists to the area.
A guerrilla group fighting in Indian Kashmir vowed on Thursday to avenge the loss of 16 Pakistani navy personnel killed aboard an aircraft downed by Indian jets this week.
"We will take revenge in Indian-occupied Kashmir in a manner that New Delhi will remember for years," the Hizbul Mujahideen group said in a statement.
Its commander Syed Salahuddin condemned what he called a "cowardly act."
"Such mean steps are the result of the frustration of the political and military leadership in India following the humiliation faced by them recently in Kargil," Salahuddin said. `Indian forces fought hundreds of guerrillas allegedly backed by Pakistan in the Kargil region of the Indian sector of Kashmir from early May to mid-July to regain strategic heights.