Terrorists declare ceasefire in PoK

Four days after the devastating earthquake that killed thousands in Pakistan and India, militants have announced a temporary, unilateral ceasefire.

United Jihad Council (UJC), a loose alliance of about a dozen militant groups, also called on its fighters to take part in relief activities in the region.

"We are temporarily suspending our activities in the areas hit by the earthquake," UJC spokesman Saleem Hashmi told Reuters.

Hashmi declined to say how many of the UJC's fighters had been killed or affected by Saturday's 7.6-magnitude quake.

India, Pak: United in Grief

In a further sign of improving ties, Pakistan announced on Monday it would accept quake relief assistance from India.

However, it ruled out allowing Indian troops onto its territory to join relief work in PoK, which the insurgents regard as their "base camp".

A spokesman for Jamat-ud-Dawa, an Islamist charity linked to the banned Pakistani terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba, said that around 100 of its fighters and their families had been killed by the quake in PoK.

He said another 300 activists and their families had been trapped in the region.

The spokesman, who asked not to be named, said hundreds of its members were involved in relief activities in the region.

"We have set up a field hospital in Muzaffarabad where 33 surgeons had operated on around 90 people so far."

The charity's Taiba Hospital in Muzaffarabad has also been destroyed.