India warns of more temple raids

Last week's raid at a Jammu temple killed 14

The Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, says his government has information that militants are planning more attacks on Indian temples.

"More temples can be targeted. We have information in this regard. But we will not be frightened and will fight terrorism and win the war against it," Mr Vajpayee said on a visit to Solan district in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.

Mr Vajpayee vowed to fight terrorism

Mr Vajpayee said militants were "targeting places of worship to foment religious sentiments and communal violence".

He said the militants would not succeed in their aim of creating fear among the people by attacking places of worship.

Mr Vajpayee referred to attacks on Hindu temples in Jammu and on pilgrims heading for the Hindu shrine of Amarnath in Indian-administered Kashmir.

In a raid on Jammu's Reghunath temple by militants last week 14 people including two militants were killed.

In September, two militants attacked a temple in the western state of Gujarat, killing 30 civilians.

Pakistan summit

Mr Vajpayee accused Pakistan of trying to disrupt India's progress but said "We know how to deal with it".

There is no point in discussing Kashmir at the summit

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

He warned that he would not attend a regional South Asian summit in Pakistan next month unless cross-border incursions by militants in Kashmir were stopped.

"I can consider going to the SAARC summit early next year provided infiltration and cross-border terrorism stops completely in Kashmir," he said.

But he added that Kashmir "is not a SAARC issue and so there is no point in discussing Kashmir at the summit".

The seven-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is due to meet in Islamabad.

The BBC's Asit Jolly in Chandigarh says while at one level Mr Vajpayee's comments reaffirm India's position on international terrorism, they are also significant in the light of state assembly elections in the western state of Gujarat due later this month.

The polls in Gujarat are critical to the political future prospects of Mr Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Gujarat has been hit by a spate of communal rioting in which more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

Unofficial reports put the death toll at 2,000.

Criticism

The state government headed by the BJP was strongly criticised for not doing enough to control the rioting.

Opposition parties have frequently accused the BJP of trying to return to power on a Hindu wave.

But Mr Vajpayee said he had advised his party not to make the train attack in Godhra an issue in the state polls.

In its election manifesto released in Ahmedabad on Sunday the BJP made no mention of any efforts to control communal violence in the state.

It did however, promise to throw out militants from the border state and conduct a study on the system of education in Muslim religious schools, or madrassas.