New Delhi, May 29
In perhaps the first unequivocal message to Pakistan, Defence Minister George Fernandes has warned that India will retaliate if any more Kaluchak-like incidents were orchestrated by terrorists.

He said the situation had more or less reached the end of the road and that India’s patience was running out. However, like in the past he again refused to give any time frame for action.

The statement of the Defence Minister is not only a signal to Pakistan to reign in the terrorists but also to the world to ensure that no such incidents took place if peace was required in the region.

“The situation has reached a threshold level,” Mr Fernandes said in a TV programme, adding that if international efforts to make Pakistan end cross-border terrorism failed, the “Indian Army is there” to tackle the issue.

“We don’t have inexhaustible patience... If another Kaluchak takes place, there won’t be any time (for India to act), We have already reached more or less the end of the road,” he said in “Court Martial” programme of Karan Thapar to be telecast on SAB TV tomorrow. He refused to specify time with regard to further action, saying that “situations change from hour to hour.”

He said the Indian troop mobilisation following the December 13 terrorist attack on Parliament was carried out to “make Pakistan realise” that New Delhi was not ready to put up with the actions it had been for the past many years.

Stating that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s recent statements were “provocative” and “showed desperation”, he said India expected the US-led global coalition against terrorism to “collectively take a stand” with regard to Islamabad’s support to cross-border terrorism.

Defending the mobilisation of troops, he said it had resulted in the mounting of international pressure on Pakistan.

On Mr Vajpayee’s statement that India should have taken action soon after the December 13 terrorist attack, he said “but it was necessary to organise ourselves and carry out the deployment. By the time the deployment was completed, a whole lot of countries persuaded the leadership of our country to avoid hostility and seek resolution through other means.”

“But that (resolution) has not come about,” he said. During the hour-long programme, he denied his role in the purchase of coffins during the Kargil war and clarified his controversial statement on rapes in Gujarat, saying that he did not mean what had been made out in the Press.