London: India has ruled out squandering away its territory just because Pakistan has adopted extra- constitutional methods to achieve its goal.

"Countries don't survive by squandering territories away merely because extra constitutionalism has been adopted by neighbour," India's Law, Justice and Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley said in London on June 30, with an obvious reference to Pakistan.

"An ill-advised precedence will be the starting point of balkanisation of any civilisation as success to those who use terror to disrupt civil life. I don't think we should allow such ideas to be taken seriously," Jaitley said while delivering the M P Birla Memorial Lecture on 'India and Terrorism' at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in London.

"Perhaps some (country) did not like the idea of India emerging a powerful nation", he said adding that the country had emerged stronger despite four wars thrust on it.

"Now we are the target of a proxy war and the main attack of the enemy was on our democratic institutions or symbol of secularism, whether it is Parliament, Temple or Amarnath Yatra."

Though many had suggested a quick counter attack on the terrorist camps located across the country's border, government had restrained from doing so. "We are conscious of our responsible response. A terrorist camp is not a permanent feature.

You destroy one, terrorists will move to the next one. Working globally and domestically to isolate terrorism is a long-term solution," he said.

Accusing Pakistan of adopting double standards in tackling terrorism, Jaitley said on the western front, it was leading the battle against terrorism while on the eastern front it was perpetrating terror.

Describing the terrorists' attack on the US on September 11, as most unfortunate, the Law Minister said India has been a victim of terror for decades.

Reeling out figures, Jaitley said in the four wars thrust on the country, India lost 9,858 soldiers but in the proxy-war in Kashmir "we have lost about 63,000 people in the last 15 years. In addition another 9,000 security personnel were also killed."

A total of 5,85,000 people were uprooted because of the proxy-war. During the combing operations, India security personnel had seized 48,000 kilograms of explosives from terrorists, which was sufficient to destroy every inch of the country.

Jaitley said while dealing with terrorists effectively, every effort was being made to see there was no Human Rights violations.

"We have several important successes to our credit in tackling terrorism and we have succeeded in bringing about tremendous international pressure on our neighbour to discard its path of supporting terrorists," he said.

Baroness Usha Prashar, High Commissioner of India to the UK Ronen Sen and Manik Dalal, Chairman of the Bhavan, were also present on the occasion.

Baroness Prashar described terrorism as a crime and said it was a question of combating crime instead of waging a war against terrorism.

PTI