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Posted on 12/15/2001 10:35:08 AM PST by BERZERKER

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf warned India against ``precipitous action'' on Saturday after New Delhi gave him days to act against Kashmiri separatists it blames for a suicide attack on its parliament.

Musharraf, speaking on Pakistan Television, said he condemned the attack on Thursday on India's parliament in which 12 people, including five assailants, died, but he added:

``I'd like to warn against any precipitous action by the Indian government against Pakistan. This would lead to very serious repercussions. It must not be done.''

India, which has blamed the assault on Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist groups, said on Saturday it expected Islamabad to respond within days to its demand that the organizations be closed and their leaders arrested.

It was the first time India had set a timeframe on an ultimatum which, if rejected, could bring the two nuclear rivals into open confrontation.

India has long accused Pakistan of sponsoring militancy in Jammu and Kashmir (news - web sites), its only Muslim-majority state, where between 30,000 and 80,000 people have died in 12 years of insurgency.

Pakistan says it gives only moral support to the separatists.

Pakistan had said on Friday it would study any evidence produced by India showing that Kashmiri separatists were behind the assault on parliament.

Musharraf also described the attack as an act of terrorism. ''I condemn in the strongest terms terrorist acts in India. Pakistan is against terrorist action in any part of the world.''

But his warning about precipitous action echoed comments made by Pakistan's top military spokesman, Major-General Rashid Qureshi, who said on Friday that Pakistan would take strong action against any violation of its border or airspace.

Indian Home (interior) Minister L.K. Advani said India's demand that Pakistan close the separatist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, blamed for a string of attacks culminating in Thursday's assault, was not up for negotiation.

``This is mandatory,'' he said. ``India will wait for a few days to know what kind of reaction comes from Pakistan.''

ARRESTS MADE

Police in India conducted a nationwide search to track down those with links to Thursday's attack.

In Jammu and Kashmir state, police said they had arrested three people suspected of having links to the attack. The three were being flown to New Delhi on Saturday for interrogation.

Indian newspapers also said two people had been arrested at the capital's Indira Gandhi international airport.

The Hindustan Times quoted a police official as saying that

one of them was on his way to Atlanta in the United States and the other was leaving for Toronto, Canada. A police official declined to confirm the reports.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee (news - web sites) had already warned that India's patience was wearing thin after a suicide attack on Kashmir's state assembly in October, for which the Jaish-e-Mohammed first claimed and then denied responsibility.

But Thursday's attack, in which guards narrowly averted a much bigger bloodbath by gunning down the assailants before they made it into the chambers where ministers and lawmakers were gathered, has raised tensions nearly to breaking point.

``We consider the attack on parliament on December 13 as the most dangerous one in the last on decade,'' said Advani.

``This adventure will cost dearly to those the terrorists, their organizations and those nations supporting these organizations,'' he told reporters in Ahmedabad (news - web sites), western India.

In a thinly veiled reference to Pakistan, Vajpayee slammed promotion of Islamic militancy which he said ``has even been made a matter of state policy by some regimes.''

``We saw it on September 11 and we have seen it again on December 13,'' he said at a ceremony in Shantiniketan, in eastern India.

India was dismayed when the United States turned to Pakistan as its key ally in its campaign in Afghanistan (news - web sites) after the September 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington.

But with the collapse of the fundamentalist Muslim Taliban in Afghanistan, it is hoping that Washington will be more willing to lean on Pakistan to close down Kashmiri separatist groups.

``I do believe that Lashkar-e-Taiba is a Pakistani outfit and I don't believe that any outfit would have taken this kind of a step (the attack on parliament) without the support of people who brought it into existence,'' Defense Minister George Fernandes told Star News television.

The attack on parliament has prompted calls from within India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for India to cross the Line of Control in ``hot pursuit'' of Kashmiri militants.

But any such move would bring the Indian army into direct confrontation with the Pakistan army in a conflict which could run the risk of spiraling into nuclear war.

Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947.

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