Pakistan fires at helicopter after plane is shot down

PAKISTAN today fired on an Indian helicopter involved in recovering the wreckage of a Pakistani naval plane shot down by Indian fighters.

Military officials said nothing was hit and no one was injured. The Pakistani missile attack comes a day after Indian jets shot down the Pakistani surveillance aircraft that had strayed into Indian territory.

An Indian air force spokesman admitted that parts of the wreckage downed by Indian fighters did land inside Pakistani territory. "In cases like this there is always some spill-over," an official spokesman said.

India claimed the French-made Atlantic 1 had violated its air space, flying at least six miles inside the western state of Gujarat adjoining the Pakistani province of Sindh.

Air force officials said that after being hit the aircraft headed for the Pakistani border, crashing aircraft headed for the Pakistani a few hundred yards inside it. Military officials said the eight- year-old Air Intrusion Treaty between India and Pakistan required all military aircraft operating within six miles of the border to inform the other side.

This had not been done and it was considered an unfriendly act, an official spokesman said. Indian officials also said they had radar evidence that the Pakistani aircraft had violated its air space.

Meanwhile, India has placed its western naval fleet and south- western air command, responsible for the region, on high alert ready to be mobilised in case of Pakistani retaliation.

The shooting of the Pakistani aircraft comes at a time when tension between the two nuclear capable countries is high. The two countries recently fought a border war in northern Kashmir, in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

India also accuses Pakistan of arming and training Islamic separatists fighting for an independent homeland in Kashmir.

New Delhi has declared that peace talks in Pakistan can begin only after Islamabad ends supporting Kashmiri terrorists.

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