New Delhi ? India expelled Pakistan’s acting ambassador Saturday, accusing him of funneling money to Muslim separatists in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan responded in kind, deepening an already deep freeze in relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

Jalil Abbas Jilani, Pakistan’s top-ranking diplomat in New Delhi, was given 48 hours to leave the country after India’s Foreign Ministry accused him of “activities incompatible with his diplomatic status.” Four other Pakistani diplomats also were ordered to leave.

The expulsion order came two days after two Kashmiri political activists were arrested here and accused of acting as conduits for funds between the Pakistani Embassy and Islamic militant groups fighting to end Indian rule in Kashmir, this country’s only Muslim-majority state.

Police said Jilani had personally given about $6,000 to one of the activists, Anjum Habib, whom they described as a member of a group affiliated with the main umbrella group for separatist organizations in Kashmir.

Pakistan denied the allegation and answered the Indian action against its envoy here by ordering his counterpart in Islamabad, acting ambassador Sudhir Vyas, and four other Indian diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours.

The expulsions underscored the tense relations between the two countries, which nearly went to war last year after a series of attacks — including a December 2001 assault on India’s Parliament — that India blamed on Islamic militants backed by Pakistan.

The immediate prospect of war was defused last spring when Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, pledged, under intense diplomatic pressure, to “permanently” end the infiltration of militants from Pakistan into the Indian-held portion of Kashmir. Both countries recently withdrew thousands of troops deployed along their 1,800-mile border.