The Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, stopped short of declaring war on neighbouring nuclear rival Pakistan yesterday when he told soldiers on the disputed northern Kashmir border to be ready for a "decisive battle".
"We must be prepared for sacrifices. Our goal is victory," Mr Vajpayee told about 1,000 cheering soldiers in Kupwara, close to the line of control which divides Kashmir between its rival claimants, India and Pakistan.
Mr Vajpayee said his coming to the Kashmir border was "indicative of something" and "whether Pakistan understood this signal or not, whether the world took account of it or not, India would write a new chapter of victory".
He also told the soldiers that the nation was behind them in their endeavour to protect the country's borders, a declaration which government and opposition MPs were interpreting as nationwide support for war with Pakistan.
As a further indication that India was getting ready for war, the navy announced it was redeploying five warships from its eastern seaboard to the western Arabian Sea, neighbouring Pakistan. "We have moved these ships to augment force levels," the naval spokesman, Commander Rahul Gupta, said in Delhi.
Similar manoeuvres close to Pakistan's coastline hastened the end of the 11-week border war in Kashmir's mountainous Kargil region in 1999 in which more than 1,200 soldiers died.
Three-dimensional battle groups, including frigates, destroyers and submarines from India's Western and Eastern fleets, were deployed "minutes away" from striking at Karachi harbour, through which over 90 per cent of Pakistan's oil supplies pass.
"Karachi is Pakistan's jugular vein and we are readying ourselves to choke it," a senior Indian navy officer said, declining to be named. He said the navy wanted to seize the initiative in the event of hostilities, as "strangulation" at sea is "slow but deadly".
Realising this, Pakistan had signed the agreement in Washington to withdraw its troops from Kargil, he added.
"Let no one think that we'll keep raising the limit of our tolerance," Mr Vajpayee said, adding that India had accepted the challenge thrown at it by Pakistan. He said India had hoped that the three wars with Pakistan since independence in 1947 and the Kargil conflict, in all of which Islamabad came off worse, would have led it down the path of peace, but that had not happened.
About a million Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been locked in a face-off against each other along their 2,000-mile frontier after last December's attack on the Indian parliament, which, Delhi says, was masterminded by Islamabad.
Scores of civilians and soldiers have died over the past five days in heavy cross-border shelling following last Tuesday's attack on an army camp near the state's winter capital Jammu, which India also blames on Pakistan.
"The world understands that there is injustice against us, but it has not openly come out in our favour. Nevertheless, we will protect ourselves," Mr Vajpayee declared. He accused Pakistan of waging "proxy war " against India by despatching mercenaries and promising them dreams of paradise to kill innocent people and to subvert the country's growth.
"Our neighbour does not have the courage to fight face-to-face any more," Mr Vajpayee said and called upon the army to decisively defeat these "evil designs".
India has accused Pakistan of fighting the 13-year Kashmir insurgency by "sponsoring" Islamic militants and helping them cross into the state to overthrow Delhi's rule. Pakistan denies the charge.
Analysts said Mr Vajpayee's warlike tone was aimed at the international community, hoping it would prevail upon the Pakistani President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, to end cross-border insurgency. "India is giving diplomacy a chance before exercising the military option," a Western diplomat said.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of supporters of the moderate Kashmiri separatist leader, Mr Abdul Ghani Lone, who was shot dead by two gunmen on Tuesday, turned out for his funeral yesterday.
Reuters adds: Three Pakistani civilians were killed and several wounded yesterday as Indian and Pakistani troops traded heavy fire along their border in disputed Kashmir, Pakistani government officials said.
"They have been using artillery, mortars and Millan missiles," a Pakistani military official said, adding the worst of the firing was into Pandu sector, south-west of Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.