India reported firing by Pakistani troops along the disputed borders in Kashmir on Tuesday and Thursday, accusing Islamabad of violating a 2003 ceasefire agreement that paved the way for resumption of talks last year.

Tensions soared despite government efforts to play down the shelling, analysts said.

Pakistan's military denied targeting Indian positions with mortars and small arms late Wednesday and Friday.

"We have fully investigated this allegation and there is no truth in this. It is baseless and there has been no firing from Pakistan," Pakistan military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP.

"We are respecting the ceasefire and would like to reassure that the ceasefire will be maintained," Sultan said.

The second round of firing late Friday came after Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said both sides had agreed not to heighten tensions.

It also came a day before a visit by India's army chief General Nirmal Chandra Vij to Kashmir's border areas.

C. Uday Bhaskar, interim director of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis, said the situation was "intriguing."

"The ceasefire has held for almost 15 months which is unprecedented," he said, noting that mortars have not been associated with "non-state actors" or the Islamic rebels battling Indian troops in Kashmir.

If the Pakistani army denies firing on Indian posts, "Is this a way of saying that mortars have got into the hands of militants? If so how? It also means the fire power index of the rebels has gone up," he said.

Another possibility was that some elements within the Pakistani army were acting "autonmously," Bhaskar said.

"The ceasefire along the border was a political agreement between the two countries and it is possible that these elements are acting in defiance of the political line taken by Pakistani government," he said.

"That both sides are acting with restraint is a positive sign. But it is a test of all the confidence-building measures in place between the two countries on the ground."

Strategic analyst K. Subrahmanyam agreed there were many theories as to why Pakistan had suddenly resumed firing on Indian positions.

"One is that it is a way of diverting attention from the United States-Pakistan plans against Iran," he said referring to a report in the New Yorker magazine which said US commandos had been operating inside Iran since mid-2004 to search potential targets.

Pakistani scientists were providing information to an American task force that penetrated eastern Iran searching for underground nuclear installations, it said.

"The second theory is that this is to tell India that Pakistan is getting closer to the United States and becoming indispensable to them so India will have to be more accomodative to Pakistan," Subrahmanyam said.

"The third is that within the Pakistani army there are dissident elements who do not like (Pakistan President General Pervez) Musharraf and his policies, including the composite dialogue and efforts to reduce tension, and they are the ones behind the firing," he said.

"I subscribe to the third," he said adding the shelling "need not impact on the composite dialogue (official level talks on all disputes), but it might."

C. Raja Mohan, professor of international relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said India and Pakistan had so far downplayed the shelling.

"It is a matter of some concern but it is still manageable. There seems to be a willingness to manage the incident rather than let it escalate," he said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is due to meet his Pakistani counterpart Shaukat Aziz on the sidelines of a regional summit in Dhaka on February 6-7.

And Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh plans to visit Pakistan later next month.

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