India Warns Pakistan Of 'Erasure'

India's defense minister warned Pakistan it would be "erased from the world map" if Islamabad used nuclear weapons against India, as heavy shelling pounded their frontier on Monday.

Pakistan responded by calling the comments by Defense Minister George Fernandes "nothing but Indian harping."

Fernandes' comments were reported just hours after Secretary of State Colin Powell called on the two sides to "both take risks for peace" and end tension on the subcontinent.

Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged mortar fire in Punch, a border district 145 miles northwest of Jammu, the winter capital of India's troubled Jammu-Kashmir state.

An Indian army spokesman said shelling from the Pakistani side began Monday and in retaliation Indian soldiers destroyed Pakistan's Chuha post.

There were no reports of any casualties, the spokesman said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

In a phone-in program with the British Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday night, Fernandes took an indirect swipe at Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for his country's refusal to adopt a no-first-use policy on nuclear weapons.

Pakistan, like the United States and other countries with nuclear weapons, has never promised not to strike first. India says it only would use nuclear weapons defensively.

"We have been saying all through, that the person who heads Pakistan today, who is also the whole and sole in-charge of that country, has been talking about using dangerous weapons including the nukes," Fernandes told BBC World's Hindi radio service.

"Well, I would reply by saying that if Pakistan has decided that it wants to get itself destroyed and erased from the world map, then it may take this step of madness," he said.

The nuclear-armed South Asian rivals, which narrowly averted war last year, have increased their hostile rhetoric and missile tests in recent weeks. Both countries expelled political envoys last week and have been making tit-for-tat claims of superior military preparedness.

"We have such a defense capability that no enemy would even dare to stare at us," Fernandes said. Pakistan boasted earlier this month it would teach India an "unforgettable lesson" if it used nuclear weapons.

The warnings have escalated, even as both countries continue a large-scale withdrawal of troops from the border. India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, avoided yet another last June after global intervention.

Two of those wars have been over the disputed territory of Kashmir, the mostly Muslim province that Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India both claim.

India accuses Pakistan of financing and training the militants fighting for the independence of Indian Kashmir, the Himalayan province claimed by both rivals. Islamabad says it only offers support to the "freedom fighters" and Musharraf pledged to halt any cross-border infiltration of separatists from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

The infiltration continues, however. Fernandes said Pakistan was also sheltering Taliban and al Qaeda fighters who had fled Afghanistan.

"This is in full knowledge of the world," he said.

Powell, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said shortly before the Fernandes comments were reported that both sides should work toward peace.

"The United States has extended a helping hand to both India and Pakistan; we stand ready to do so again," Powell said. "But it is crucial that they both take risks for peace on the subcontinent and work to normalize their relations."

Pakistani military spokesman Gen. Rashid Quereshi told The Associated Press in Karachi on Monday that Musharraf had never talked about using nuclear weapons against India.

In an interview published last month, Musharraf said that if India had crossed the Line of Control that separates the two countries, "they should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan."

The comment was widely reported as a thinly veiled reference to the use of nuclear weapons. But Quereshi said this was a reference to Pakistanis rallying together, not nuclear war.

According to military analysts, part of the reason Pakistan has been vague about its rules for nuclear engagement is that India has a vastly superior conventional military, with more than twice as many troops and combat aircraft.

That means, say some, that Pakistan's nuclear threat has to serve not only as a deterrent to nuclear attack but also to conventional invasion.