FOCUS-India sees no retreat in Kashmir, pushes on
(Recasts with military briefing)
NEW DELHI, July 6 (Reuters) - India said on Tuesday there was no sign of a retreat by militants from Kashmir heights despite a U.S.-Pakistani pact apparently providing for their withdrawal, and claimed new ground in its ongoing military offensive.
''I had reported yesterday that we don't have any evidence on the ground of Pakistani forces, or the extremist elements under their command and management, withdrawing from the residual areas under the occupation,'' foreign ministry spokesman Raminder Singh Jassal told a news briefing.
''I have nothing to add to that today. There is no material change in that situation.''
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and U.S. President Bill Clinton agreed on Sunday that ''concrete steps'' would be taken for the restoration of the 1972 military control line which divides India and Pakistan in the disputed Himalayan territory.
U.S. officials said that meant Pakistan would ensure the retreat of hundreds of militants holed up in mountains on the Indian side of Kashmir.
Indian and Pakistani heads of military operations spoke to each other by telephone, but officials stressed it was only part of contacts made every Tuesday.
Indian troops, engaged in their biggest offensive in Kashmir in nearly three decades, won back three more positions in the Batalik sector in Kashmir after heavy overnight fighting.
''We have had three significant successes in the Batalik sector,'' Singh said, adding that fierce fighting was continuing on a spur of Tiger Hill, which India said it had wrested from the guerrillas at the weekend.
Hundreds of men New Delhi says are a mix of Islamic mercenaries and Pakistan army regulars have occupied a 140-km (90-mile) stretch of high ground from the Mushkoh valley to Kargil-Batalik in the east above a key supply road.
The army said in a statement that at one of the Batalik positions, Khalubar, a large cache of weapons and ammunition and documents belonging to Pakistan's Northern Light Infantry had been recovered.
''Further, the enemy has also left behind 11 dead bodies dumped in a shallow pit in this area,'' it said.
There was no let-up in air strikes on the fighters hidden in ridges and mountain folds near the military control line with Pakistan, air commanders said.
Air strikes were carried out on the Muntho Dhalo area on Monday, but planned missions in the Batalik sector were stalled because of bad weather, Group Captain D.N. Ganesh said.
India has lost 283 soldiers, 451 have been wounded and 10 have gone missing since the operations to flush out the militants began in early May, officials said. They estimated that 542 had died on the enemy's side.
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