Pakistan on Saturday booted out the acting Indian ambassador in a tit-for-tat move, after India expelled the top Pakistani envoy, deepening a chill between the nuclear-armed neighbors. Pakistan declared India's Acting High Commissioner Sudhir Vyas and four colleagues "personae non grata, for involvement in activities incompatible with their status." They were given 48 hours to comply.

India had earlier expelled Pakistan's Acting High Commissioner Jalil Abbas Jilani a day after police accused him of funding nationalists in Indian Kashmir , the cause of a confrontation last year that nearly brought the rivals to war.

He and four other Pakistani staff at the Pakistan high commission (embassy) in New Delhi were also ordered to leave within 48 hours.

But New Delhi said India "did not intend any downgradation in the level of (Pakistan's) representation" and would grant a visa to the person Pakistan named in the envoy's place.

A Pakistani foreign ministry statement said the expulsion was "reciprocating the Indian decision to further cut down the strength of the Pakistan high commission in New Delhi."

ACCUSATIONS OF SPYING

Only last month, the south Asian neighbors expelled each other's diplomats over accusations of spying.

In response to Islamabad's decision, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told Reuters: "It is a pure and simple act of retaliation. It shows Pakistan's compulsive hostility toward India. It is unfortunate that Pakistan has chosen to react in this way."

The Indian allegations against Jilani followed the arrest on Thursday of two Kashmiri separatists and the recovery of 622,000 rupees (13,040 dlrs) that police alleged was intended to fund nationalist activities in Kashmir.

On Friday Pakistan branded as "ridiculous and baseless" allegations Jilani funnelled funds to separatists in Indian Kashmir, where a bloody revolt against New Delhi's rule has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1989.

Mainly Hindu but officially secular India has long accused Islamic Pakistan of arming, training and financing Kashmiri nationalist fighters in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, and of allowing them to cross the line of control that separates the countries in the region.

Pakistan denies the charges, saying it gives only moral support to what it calls Kashmiris' legitimate freedom struggle.

PROXY WAR

In a separate broadside against Pakistan, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee  reiterated accusations that Islamabad funds, supports and sponsors "terrorism...as a matter of state policy."

In a speech to a conference on internal security, Vajpayee said Pakistan had failed to honor a pledge to end "cross-border terrorism" and stop helping Kashmiri nationalist fighters enter Indian Kashmir to join the revolt that has claimed 38,000 lives.

"The Pakistani establishment does not appear to be interested in establishing tension-free and good-neighborly relations with India by ending its proxy war against our country," he said.

Pakistan condemned India's decision to expel Jilani, accusing New Delhi of unnecessary provocation.

"This is a very unfortunate decision from the Indian side and the worst kind of diplomatic decision," Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad told Reuters in Islamabad. "We want peace and India wants to provoke us. It's a bad symbol."

Indian defense analyst Kanti Bajpai said diplomacy between the neighbors, which have fought two of their three wars over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, had plunged "about as low as it can get." But he did not expect the dispute to escalate into a fresh military confrontation.

"I don't think anyone wants to get into anything like that... we've already pulled back (Indian troops) from the border."

Both sides scaled down their diplomatic presence during the military stand-off last year that followed a 2001 raid on India's parliament New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic Kashmiri nationalist fighters.

PHOTO CAPTION

A masked Kashmir nationalist supporter of the Jammu Kashmir Democratic Liberation Party (JKDLP) holds a placard during a demonstration in Srinagar, February 8, 2003. A protest was organised by the nationalist party to protest against the death penalty handed out to three youths by an Indian court in December 2002 for their alleged attack on the Indian Parliament building in 2001.REUTERS/Fayaz Kabli