NEW DELHI - India's prime minister said on Monday there was credible information that Pakistan-based militant groups were planning fresh attacks on India.

Manmohan Singh's statement was the latest attempt by India to pile more pressure on Pakistan to act against anti-India militants that New Delhi blames for last November's Mumbai attacks.

Coming to specific challenges, cross-border terrorism remains a most pervasive threat, Singh told a conference on national security attended by provincial chief ministers.

There is credible information of ongoing plans of terrorist groups in Pakistan to carry out fresh attacks.

India suspended a 2004 peace process with Pakistan after last November's attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people, saying it could be resumed only if Pakistan acted to dismantle the terrorist network on its soil.

New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan-based militants who it said were supported by some official agencies.

Pakistan denied official involvement, but accepted that the attack was partly planned on its soil. It arrested five people who India said were behind the attack.

Singh also said Pakistan-based groups fighting Indian rule in disputed Kashmir region had stepped up efforts to send their militants across after a period of relative calm in the region.

The areas of operation of these terrorists today extends far beyond the confines of Jammu and Kashmir and covers all parts of the country, the prime minister said.

He said though the level of violence had gone down in Kashmir during the past few years when India and Pakistan began their peace talks in 2004, there has been a surge in the incidence of infiltration attempts by the Pakistan-based militants.

The infiltrators appear more battle-hardened, better equipped and in possession of sophisticated communications.

There are also signs of a revival of over ground militant activities...All this shows that efforts to disturb the current status-quo has not been given up, Singh said.

Kashmir remains at the core of a six-decade-long bloody conflict between India and Pakistan. Both claim the Himalayan region in full but rule it in part. It has caused two of the three wars the two countries have fought.

India says Pakistan arms and trains Kashmiri separatist militants. Islamabad says it only extends moral support of the Kashmiri freedom struggle.

(Writing by Krittivas Mukherjee; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Sanjeev Miglani)

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