He said the total Indian troop strength in the region had now reached 730,000. The build-up along with the deployment of around 60 frontline aircraft was not just meant to combat a few hundred Islamic militants in the Kargil-Drass sectors in the Indian zone of Kashmir, he told reporters at a briefing.

Qureshi said India was concentrating troops to capture Pakistani posts on heights overlooking India's key supply route, which runs from the settlement of Leh to Kargil and the nearby Siachen glacier. "We are quite sure the large-scale Indian concentration is designed to take areas on our side of the LoC so that we are unable to fire (on the supply route)," he said.

Pakistani troops held and would continue to hold positions on their territory, he added, reiterating that they had not crossed the Line of Control (LoC) splitting Kashmir into Pakistani and Indian zones.

Qureshi said Indian planes had also intruded into Pakistani territory in Kashmir and warned of possible action against any such move in future. He said three Indian military aircraft briefly overflew Pakistani territory opposite the Kargil and Drass mountains but Pakistani positions were not attacked. "We assume the planes were on a photographic mission," he said. "If they do it again they will be responsible for all consequences."

The reported incursion was the second since a reported weekend violation by two Indian planes in the same area, he said. India denied that incursion. Qureshi said cross-border Indian shelling over the past 24 hours had killed one civilian and injured five others in Pakistan.

Pakistani retaliatory fire left 10 Indian soldiers dead and an ammunition and rations depot destroyed across the LoC, he added.
He said Pakistan did not want to escalate the situation and "we have taken minimum defensive measures necessary to foil any Indian design."

The rival armies have been fighting artillery duels along the 720-kilometer (446-mile) LoC since early May, with the most serious clashes taking place in the Kargil-Drass region.

The flare-up erupted when India launched ground operations on May 9 and later also threw in its air force to drive out what it calls Pakistan-backed intruders occupying strategic heights in the Indian zone.

India says Pakistan army regulars are fighting alongside the Moslem militant intruders, a charge Pakistan denies.

Information Minister Mushahid Hussain said the Kargil problem "is hostage to the Indian domestic political situation." A general election is to held in September-October. The international community must not support the Indian "war hysteria," he said.

Hussain said Pakistan was committed to promoting peace in the region and urged the international community to "act before any disaster rather than after the disaster."

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