The Indian army reported the heaviest shelling since relations between the hostile neighbours plummeted two weeks ago following a massacre in Kashmir India blames on Pakistan.

US President George W. Bush said he was dispatching Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to India and Pakistan "early next week" in a bid to defuse the situation.

"Yes he's going there. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is going this week and then Secretary Rumsfeld is going ... next week, yeah, early next week," Bush told reporters.

But tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals continued to mount Thursday with Pakistan redeploying troops from its western border with Afghanistan to the eastern flank with India.

Pakistan's military said in a statement read out on state television that the redeployment from the Afghan frontier was made "in view of the adverse posture of the Indian armed forces".

An Indian army spokesman said India was aware of the troop movements amid US warnings that "irresponsible elements" in the two nuclear-armed countries could spark a war.

"We are in full knowledge of the situation and Pakistani troop and tank mobilisation," spokesman Colonel Sruti Kant told AFP. "We are in complete control of the situation."

Kant said India had information that the Pakistani troops were being moved to areas flanking India's western border states of Rajasthan and Punjab, the theatre of previous wars between the two arch-rivals.

Musharraf said war between India and Pakistan would only break out if India initiates the conflict.

"We will try to avoid a conflict. Conflict will only take place if it is initiated by India," he said at a press conference.

Earlier in the day, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee called an unscheduled meeting with his three key advisers on security matters -- Defence Minister George Fernandes, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

Singh afterwards said "various issues" had been discussed, without elaborating, although the chiefs of the Indian army, navy and air force did not attend.

Fernandes later said Musharraf has told British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that he would end support to Kashmiri Islamic separatists.

"The stated intention of Musharraf is that within a certain period cross-border terrorism will come to an end," the defence minister said, citing Straw's talks on Wednesday with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in New Delhi.

"But the point is how does one believe it? Cross-border terrorism is at the hands of Pakistan army, backed by the ISI and other such elements," he said of Pakistan's military intelligence which India blames for all its troubles in turbulent Kashmir.

Fernandes was to late Thursday leave for Singapore where he would attend a regional security conference that would enable India to brief world leaders on its stance with Pakistan, the defence ministry said.

A defence spokesman in Jammu, southern Kashmir, said heavy shelling, mortar and gunfire had raged across the Indian-Pakistani borders overnight into Thursday.

At least seven people were killed in a fierce artillery duel in Poonch district that continued deep into the night, Indian police said.

Tension was raised even higher when, according to police, two Muslim rebels attacked a police post at Doda, 172 kilometers (106 miles) north of Kashmir's winter capital Jammu, late Wednesday and killed three policemen on duty.

Another five police were wounded after the militants hid inside a two-storey building with 250 rooms and exchanged fire with Indian soldiers, a police spokesman said.

The guerrillas were finally shot dead Thursday afternoon by soldiers and paramilitaries, the spokesman said.

All rights reserved. � 2002 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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