The Indian army and paramilitary border guards were put on alert Monday after Pakistan moved men and munition closer to the border, Indian officials said.
Farooq Abdullah, chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir, said Pakistan was amassing "troops, tanks and heavy artillery" along the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
"What is Pakistan going to plan we don't know?" he asked.
Farther south in the desert state of Rajasthan, B.D. Sharma, deputy inspector general of India's Border Security Force (BSF) at Jodhpur, said India was keeping vigil along its 1,050-kilometer (650-mile) border with Pakistan.
"We can see Pakistani soldiers belonging to the 191, 35 and 10 infantry brigades amassing some 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the zero line (outer limit of the shared border)," Sharma said.
"We can also see some offensive formations comprising infantry and tank divisions near the border. There is a build-up near Ganganagar, Kishangar and Longewal in Rajasthan. It is not normal."
"The presence of Pakistani Rangers on border posts cannot be ignored. That is why the BSF has been alerted," he said, adding that the air force was also put on alert.
Abdullah, speaking to reporters as the Kashmir administration reopened its offices at the winter capital Jammu, called for action.
"Are we ready to meet the threat or we are going to go Kargil way?" he asked, referring to the intrusion of Pakistani-based forces into the Kargil region of Kashmir in 1999.
It took the Indian army two months to evict entrenched armed intruders from the peaks of Kargil, in fighting that left at least 1,000 people dead.
"They (Pakistanis) shell our villages," he said, "and make our people leave their houses."
"How long should we tolerate this?" asked Abdullah, who has been demanding that the Indian air force strike camps across the LoC that it says train militants who infiltrate and stage attacks in Kashmir's Indian zone.
Pakistan denies training Kashmiri militants on its soil.
Indian and Pakistani troops have been exchanging fire over the LoC and international border since the beginning of October.
The tensions rose when the Indian army launched "punitive operations" against the Pakistani army along LoC on October 15, damaging or destroying 11 Pakistani posts.
The Indian officials also claimed to have killed 30 Muslim militants in the operation.
The Indian operation came just as US Secretary of State Colin Powell began a trip to India and Pakistan. The latest tensions come just as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld leaves.
Skirmishes broke out overnight and Monday in Kashmir when Pakistani troops resorted to "indiscriminate and unprovoked" mortar firing in the Tangdar and Karna sectors of northern Kupwara district across the LoC, an Indian army spokesman said.
Two residential houses were damaged in the shelling.
"The Indian army in its exercise of its right to take appropriate action carried out retaliatory engagement against military targets in the general area opposite Tangdar," the spokesman said, adding damages on the Pakistani side were unclear.
Another exchange of fire between the two armies along the LoC was reported Monday. No casualties or damage was reported.
The two countries have fought three wars over Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947.
Overnight, another 19 people died in Indian-administered Kashmir in connection with a 12-year-old Muslim separatist insurgency.
Indian forces shot dead eight militants at Tarkhana Dhoke Shahpur in southern Poonch district overnight, a police spokesman said.
More than 50 militants have been killed in Poonch since Friday.
Security around Kashmir's civil administration was put at highest alert on the first day of the secretariat's six-month winter term in Hindu-majority Jammu, with troops dotting the entire four-kilometer (two-mile) road from Abdullah's official residence to the secretariat.
Civil offices were put under even tighter security in Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar, where violence linked to Muslim separatists is frequent.
A suicide bombing at the state legislature in Srinagar on October 1 left 38 people dead, most of them civilians -- SRINAGAR, India (AFP)
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