India said on Saturday that its army is on a "strict vigil" for new attacks from Pakistan and renewed warnings to its neighbor to take concrete action against militant groups. The nuclear-armed archrivals have maintained an uneasy calm since tit-for-tat cross-border air raids across their disputed Kashmir frontier last month. Each claimed to have shot down a fighter jet from the other side. An Indian foreign ministry spokesman responded with skepticism to reports of scores of militants being rounded up in Pakistan this week. Islamabad was in "a state of denial" over its support for groups accused of staging attacks in India, the spokesman, Raveesh Kumar, said at a specially convened media briefing. "Our armed forces continue to maintain strict vigil and will remain determined in the defense of the nation and its citizens," he said. "We have and we will continue to act with responsibility and maturity," he added. India is suspicious of Pakistan's statements it has clamped down on the Jaish-e-Mohammed group that claimed a suicide bombing in Kashmir last month that set off the showdown. Forty Indian paramilitaries were killed in the Feb. 14 attack. Islamabad announced on Thursday that more than 100 militants, including many from JeM, had been detained. But Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also recently denied in a television interview that JeM had claimed responsibility for the suicide attack. The Indian spokesman said "the widespread presence of terrorist camps in Pakistan is public knowledge within and outside Pakistan." "Pakistan has failed to take any credible action against Jaish-e-Mohammed and other terrorist organizations, which continue to operate with impunity from Pakistan," he added. "The fact that Pakistan has now refused access to journalists from visiting the site means that they have plenty to hide," Kumar emphasized. He reiterated the government's stand that India's air strikes were "successful and achieved the desired objectives", after being asked about a report that said high-resolution satellite images showed that the madrasa appeared to be still standing. — Agencies
