Pakistan Downs Indian Spy Drone
Pakistan's military said Tuesday its forces shot down an unmanned Indian spy plane over the Pakistan-controlled sector of disputed Kashmir.
The incident comes amid rising tensions in South Asia. An Indian official this week warned that Pakistan risked being "erased" if it invaded, and the two sides exchanged artillery fire across their border. Both countries recently tested missiles and conducted tit-for-tat expulsions of one another's diplomats.
In a statement, the military-run Inter-Services Public Relations department said the downed aircraft was one of two remote-controlled planes that violated Pakistani air space along the Line of Control that divides Indian and Pakistani-governed portions of Kashmir.
One of the planes flew up to 4 miles into Pakistani territory, the statement said. It said the incursions took place beginning late Sunday but didn't say when the plane was shot down. A military spokesman said the downed plane was seen falling in flames onto Indian territory.
"During the last year about 200 such violations occurred," the statement said. Over the summer, with troops massed on the border and the countries near the brink of war, Pakistan downed an unmanned Indian plane.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir since independence from India in 1947 and both claim the Himalayan region in its entirety. Each side stations hundreds of thousands of troops in the region, and exchanges of artillery and small weapons fire between their forces are common.
On Monday, India's defense minister warned Pakistan it would be "erased from the world map" if Islamabad used nuclear weapons against India.
Pakistan responded by calling the comments by Defense Minister George Fernandes "nothing but Indian harping."
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.
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.
Warnings have escalated even as both countries continue a large-scale withdrawal of troops from the border.
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.
Also Monday, 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. There were no reports of any casualties.