India says arrests Pakistan soldier, Islamabad denies

By Sheikh Mushtaq

SRINAGAR (Reuters) - Indian police said on Tuesday they had arrested three militants, one of them a Pakistani soldier, for allegedly planning a suicide attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Pakistan's army, however, denied the arrested man was a serving soldier.

The arrests came as India deployed thousands of troops in the main city of Kashmir, a day before a crucial last phase of state polls on Wednesday.

Muslim-majority Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital and the heart of a nearly 20-year-old separatist campaign against Indian rule, goes to the polls on Wednesday as does the Hindu-majority city of Jammu, the state's winter capital.

Police said they had been conducting raids in the entire state over the past few days to thwart trouble ahead of the polls.

During the raids, they arrested three members of the banned Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group on suspicion of planning suicide bombings in Kashmir during polling.

"One of the three has been identified as Ghulam Farid alias Gulshan Kumar, a sepoy (soldier) of the Pakistan Army," Kashmir police director general Kuldeep Khuda told a news conference.

A Pakistan military official said Farid deserted army in 2006 from the central city of Okara.