"The manoeuvres are being held in stages and they will culminate on May 19 in a theatre of 10 to 15 square kilometres (about four to six square miles)," Indian army spokesman Colonel S.K. Sakuja told AFP in New Delhi.

The mock battles, codenamed Sangha Shakti (Joint Power), involve more than 40,000 soldiers from India's 2nd Strike Corps which accounts for almost 50 percent of the million-plus army's cross-border strike capability, Sakuja said.

He said the three-week exercises were being conducted near Pakistan's borders in northern Punjab state's Jullandhar district.

Military commanders said India had alerted Islamabad in advance about the exercises as part of a bilateral military accord.

The spokesman said a "mixed compliment" of transport and strike aircraft of the Indian Air Force were backing Sangha Shakti, one of the biggest wargames in recent years on Pakistan's militerised borders.

On Wednesday, the 2nd Strike Corps, backed by troops from the army's 14th Rapid Division, practiced dry runs with T-90 Russian battle tanks in Punjab's deserts with temperatures reaching 42 Celsius (107 Fahrenheit).

"This will put to test our 2004 war doctrine to dismember a not-so-friendly nation effectively and at the shortest possible time but since my statement is not politically-friendly I would not like to be identified," a commander told AFP.

The comments were an obvious reference to Pakistan which went to war with India in 1947, 1965 and 1971.

The neighbors conducted tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests in 1998 and four years later came dangerously close to a fourth war when India blamed Pakistan for an armed attack on its parliament by Muslim gunmen.

The wargames coincided with an agreement Wednesday between India and Pakistan to launch a truck service as well as a second passenger bus route this summer linking the parts of disputed Kashmir held by each country.

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