Pakistan remembers Bhutto as tension with India mounts

Tens of thousands of ordinary Pakistanis paid their respects at the grave of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto yesterday, as reports of troop movements led to fears that India and Pakistan were making preparations for a military conflict.

In an attempt to defuse the growing tension between the two countries, Pakistani prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani gave a televised speech in which he said: "We don't want to fight, we don't want to have war, we don't want to have aggression with our neighbours." But he added that the country's military was "fully prepared" to respond to any Indian aggression.

The statement came after Pakistani intelligence officials announced on Friday that the army was redeploying thousands of troops from the country's fight against militants along the Afghan border to the Indian frontier. Islamabad also said it was cancelling all military leave, as relations continued to deteriorate between the nuclear-armed neighbours following last month's terror attack on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.

India has blamed Pakistani militants for the three-day siege which left 164 people dead, after gunmen targeted 10 sites in the city, including two five-star hotels. In the wake of the troop movements, panic has reportedly gripped towns close to the Indian border, with residents convinced that war is about to break out. But the redeployments were generally seen as an indication that Pakistan will retaliate if India launches air or missile strikes against militant targets on its soil.

A senior Pakistan military official said: "We are only pulling out a limited number of troops, in view of the situation, from the areas that are not involved in the operation [against Islamic militants]. It is part of the necessary defensive measures."

The Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee yesterday accused Pakistan of whipping up a "sort of war hysteria". Mukherjee said: "I appeal to Pakistan and Pakistani leaders: do not unnecessarily try to create tension. Do not try to deflect the issue. A problem has to be tackled face to face."

The United States has been trying to ease the burgeoning crisis while at the same time pressing Pakistan to crack down on militants Washington says are likely to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks. But the Indian position towards Pakistan has notably hardened over the last few days, with the air force refusing to rule out strikes inside its neighbour's borders.

Air Marshal PK Barbora, chief of India's western air command, said that the air force had identified 5,000 terrorist targets inside Pakistani territory. He said diplomacy should be given a chance, but added that if that failed, "war is the last resort". Pakistan and India have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947 - two over Kashmir, a majority Muslim region in the Himalayan mountains that is claimed by both countries.

On Friday, India warned its citizens to stay away from Pakistan, claiming that they were in danger from agencies "that operate outside the law and civilian control". Yesterday's newspaper reports reflected increasingly frenzied war speculation. "Pak army on the march" was the headline in the Hindustan Times, while the Times of India - which led its Christmas Day edition with the headline "Pak whips itself into war frenzy" - reported that Pakistan had stepped up its "war moves". Claims by Pakistan that Indian nationals had been arrested in connection with a Christmas Eve car bombing in Lahore were also angrily dismissed. Anand Sharma, an Indian external affairs minister, called the reports "hogwash".

Although some in the Indian media have urged caution, there has been a spate of anti-Pakistan stories since the Mumbai attacks. Yesterday's Times of India carried a front-page report headlined "Pak textbooks foster hate against India" which claimed that "venom against India is officially promoted to infect young minds in Pakistani schools" and asserted that terrorism in Pakistan had its roots in a culture of hate.

Many in India appear ready to believe that the Mumbai bombings were sanctioned at the highest level in Pakistan, with newspapers citing unnamed sources within the Indian administration claiming that the attacks were part of a plan by the Pakistani military to reassert itself over the civilian government.

In a pointed reference to India, he warned that the whole region would suffer in the event of war and urged that dialogue was the only solution. He insisted that, despite its problems, "Pakistan is not a failed state".

Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, has been briefed by his armed forces chiefs on the military situation. New Delhi has so far done little to play down talk of war, mobilising the country's network of civil defence volunteers and asking them to be ready to evacuate border villages if necessary.

Meanwhile, an estimated 150,000 made the pilgrimage to Benazir Bhutto's remote ancestral village, Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, in the southern Sindh province. Crying out "Bibi [Benazir Bhutto] is alive", a huge crowd, many in tears, beating their heads and chests, gathered to pray at her graveside, which lies close to that of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, another former prime minister, in a marble mausoleum.

The main function at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, due to be addressed in person by Bhutto's widower, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, was abruptly cancelled, seemingly due to fears of a suicide bomb attack. Her three children remained in the nearby family home. About 6,000 police officers and paramilitary soldiers were deployed around the tomb.

"Pakistan asks sacrifices of us, and when it does, this party and the people of this country give them," Zardari said in a half-hour speech. "There are a lot of conspiracies and fears but today democracy has triumphed ... we ourselves have accepted we have a cancer."

Television channels played near-continuous coverage of the commemorations, footage of Bhutto's life, and repeated clips of her assassination.