India also asserted China's support to its fight against terror and said seven teams comprising politicians and diplomats will set off next week for 18 nations, all of them Muslim-majority except Belgium and South Africa, to explain Delhi's hardline stance.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said India still awaited action on the list of 20 fugitives sent to Pakistan for extradition and hinted Islamabad's current crackdown against Islamic militants was not sufficient.

"Certain actions we have asked Pakistan to take but have not happened yet," the spokeswoman said.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in an address last week had rejected the handing over of any Pakistani national to India but said Islamabad could act against others if it found enough evidence to link them to criminal activities.

Rao said India was not obliged to react to the Pakistani crackdown, described as a positive step by the United States.

"As a nation of one billion people we have the right to have a point of view on the issue ... and we are yet to make our final determination," she said.

Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan have massed 800,000 troops along their border following an attack on December 13 on the parliament in New Delhi, which India blames on Pakistan-based Muslim guerrillas.

Rao said visiting Chinese Prime Minister Premier Zhu Rongji during talks reiterated Beijing's opposition to terrorism and extended whole-hearted support to India's fight against the scourge.

Indian police, meanwhile, reported the arrest Tuesday of four men in New Delhi they said were Islamic militants sent to the national capital by Pakistan to attack an annual military parade on January 26.

A Delhi police spokesman described the four suspects as members of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been banned and its leaders arrested on Musharraf's orders.

Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani meanwhile returned from a six-day tour of the United States, during which he met President George W. Bush and others, and said there was a unanimity of views on the question of "cross-border terrorism."

"I conveyed India's concerns and I feel the US leadership understands them," Advani said.

"I can't think of a single time when they didn't agree with all that we said."

During his visit, Advani had pushed the US to put more pressure on Islamabad to crack down on Pakistan-based Islamic separatist groups New Delhi blames for staging terror attacks in India and in troubled Kashmir.

But US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who left Tuesday for Pakistan on the first leg of a South Asia tour, rejected India's dismissive stand on the arrests in Pakistan.

"President Musharraf has done more than just speak, he is taking action, he has banned terrorist organisations, he is arresting people," Powell said in a CNN interview.

Powell later said a key aim of his mission would be to downgrade the chances of a sudden incident triggering a new conflict between India and Pakistan who have two of their three wars over Kashmir since 1947.

In Islamabad, Musharraf on Tuesday said his government would never end its support to a decade-old Muslim struggle for self-rule in Indian Kashmir --- a drive that has claimed more than 35,000 lives in the divided Himalayan territory.

"We will continue to support the just freedom struggle of Kashmiris politically, diplomatically and morally," he told the inaugural session of the newly-constituted National Kashmir Committee.

New Delhi says Islamabad exports armed Islamic guerrillas into Indian Kashmir, a charge Pakistan vehemently denies.

India on Monday ruled out pulling back its border forces, despite Musharraf's address in which he outlawed five separatist groups and cracked down on militants resulting in the arrest of 1,900 alleged religious extremists by Tuesday's count.

Washington has pressured Musharraf to crack down on militants, while calling on India to give Musharraf time to act and to ease tensions.

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