SRINAGAR: India
and Pakistan exchanged "heavy" cross-border fire yesterday, after New
Delhi's move to strip the restive Kashmir region of its autonomy prompted a
rare meeting of the UN Security Council. The two foes regularly fire potshots
over the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed Himalayan territory, which is
divided between the two countries and poisoned their relations since
independence in 1947.

But the latest
exchange follows India's decision this month to rip up the special
constitutional status of its part of Kashmir, sparking protests from the local
population, outrage from Pakistan and unease from neighboring China. "The
exchange of fire is going on," a senior Indian government official told
AFP, calling it "heavy". One Indian soldier was reportedly killed.
Pakistan made no immediate comment on the violence.

Late Friday,
Pakistan and China succeeded in getting the UN Security Council to discuss
Kashmir-behind closed doors-for the first time since the Indo-Pakistan war of
1971. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday hailed the gathering,
saying that addressing the "suffering of the Kashmiri people &
ensuring resolution of the dispute is the responsibility of this world body".

New Delhi insists
the status of the territory is a purely internal matter. "We don't need
international busybodies to try to tell us how to run our lives. We are a
billion-plus people," India's UN envoy Syed Akbaruddin said after the
meeting. US President Donald Trump urged the nuclear-armed rivals to come back
to the negotiating table, speaking to Khan by phone on the importance of
"reducing tensions through bilateral dialogue".

Phone lines

India yesterday
meanwhile gradually restored phone lines following an almost two-week
communications blackout in its part of Kashmir, imposed hours before Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's surprise August 5 gambit. Seventeen out of around 100
telephone exchanges were restored yesterday in the restive Kashmir Valley, the
local police chief told AFP.

But mobiles and
the internet remained dead in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, the main
hotbed of resistance to Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir state in a 30-year-old
conflict that has killed tens of thousands. Fearing an angry and potentially
violent response, India also sent 10,000 extra troops to the area, severely
restricted movement and arrested some 500 local politicians, activists,
academics and others. The state's Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam had said
Friday there would be a "gradual" restoration of phone lines over the
weekend, with schools to resume classes in some areas next week.

Clashes

The
transformation of Srinagar into an eerie maze of barricades, soldiers and
concertinas of barbed wire has failed to stop public anger boiling to the
surface. "We want peace and nothing else, but they have kept us under this
lockdown like sheep while taking decisions about us," resident Tariq Madri
told AFP. "Even my nine-year old son asked me why they had locked us inside,"
he added. Several hundred protesters clashed with police in the city on Friday,
who responded with tear gas and pellet-firing shotguns.

People hurled
stones and used shop hoardings and tin sheets as improvised shields, as police
shot dozens of rounds into the crowd. No injuries were reported. The clashes
broke out after more than 3,000 people rallied in the city's Soura
neighborhood, which has witnessed regular demonstrations this month. A week
earlier around 8,000 people staged a protest which also ended in a violent
confrontation with police, residents said. "I want the government to know
that this aggression and aggressive policies don't work on the ground,"
said 24-year-old Adnan Rashid, an engineering student.

Some people took
to the streets yesterday to buy essential goods but most shops in Srinagar
remained closed. Mohammed Altaf Malik, 30, said people remained angry about the
stripping of Kashmir's special status "and the way it was done".
"There is widespread corruption and the police here have made it a
business to pick up any people it wants and then ask for money to release them
from detention," Malik said as he went to visit a sick neighbor in
hospital. "We don't see anything changing from this for ordinary people
like us," he added.

Changing 'no
first use'

Meanwhile,
India's defense minister hinted on Friday that New Delhi might change its
"no first use" policy on nuclear weapons, amid heightened tensions
with fellow atomic power Pakistan. India committed in 1999 to not being the
first to use nuclear weapons in any conflict. Among India's neighbors China has
a similar doctrine but arch rival Pakistan does not.

Defense Minister
Rajnath Singh made the comment on Twitter after visiting Pokhran, the site of
India's successful nuclear tests in 1998 under then prime minister Atal
Vajpayee. "Pokhran is the area which witnessed (Vajpayee's) firm resolve
to make India a nuclear power and yet remain firmly committed to the doctrine
of 'No First Use'," Singh wrote.

"India has
strictly adhered to this doctrine. What happens in future depends on the
circumstances," Singh tweeted. The statement comes as tensions rise with
Pakistan after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government stripped
Indian-administered Kashmir of its autonomy, a move sharply condemned by
Islamabad.

'Stop lying'

Singh's comments
prompted considerable noise in both India and Pakistan, with Pakistan's
minister for human rights Shireen Mazari tweeting that India "need to stop
lying". "India's claims to NFU ended when on 4 Jan 2003 Indian govt
declared it would use nuclear weapons against any (even Chemical or Biological)
attack 'against India or Indian forces anywhere'," she said. Observers
said Singh's statement is the clearest so far with regards to a change in India's
nuclear doctrine.

Vipin Narang, a
professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tweeted it was the
"highest level declaration that India may not feel indefinitely or
absolutely bound to No First Use." Singh received support from Subramanian
Swamy, a hardliner parliamentarian from Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
"Rajnath is correct as to warn about possible review of Vajpayee's no
first use of n weapons since Pak leadership is more crazed today than in
1998," he tweeted.

"First use is
required now on if we get credible evidence that Pak faced with ignominy may go
for first strike. We must pre-empt that," Swamy wrote. This is not the
first time that the Modi government has made a statement regarding its nuclear
policy. In 2016, then defense minister Manohar Parrikar had expressed his
reservations over the "no first use" nuclear policy. Parrikar, who
died last year, had said India was a responsible nuclear power and "it
would not use it irresponsibly."

A revision to the
policy was part of the BJP's election manifesto in 2014. Then front runner
Modi, however, stated that if voted to power, he had no intention of changing
the stance. Running for a second term earlier this year, Modi had said his
government had called Pakistan's "nuclear bluff". "India has
stopped getting scared of Pakistan's threats. Every other day they say, 'we
have a nuclear button.' What do we have then? Have they kept it for
Diwali?"," he said, referring to a Hindu festival when fireworks are
set off.- Agencies