India blames Pakistan for raid that kills 17 troops

PM Modi condemns 'cowardly terror attack'; Islamabad denies that it was involved

An Indian army soldier looking on near the site of the gunfight at the border with Pakistan, in Uri on Sept 18, 2016. PHOTO: AFP

SRINAGAR (India) • India accused Pakistan of being behind an attack on an army base yesterday near their disputed frontier that killed 17 soldiers, in one of the most deadly attacks in Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency.

Four gunmen, armed with AK-47 assault rifles and grenades, burst into the army brigade's headquarters in Uri at 5.30am and were killed after a three-hour gunfight, a senior Indian army officer said.

The incident sharply increased tensions between the bitter, nuclear-armed rivals and will raise fears of a military escalation.

Indian and Pakistani troops are in close proximity in many places along one of the world's most heavily militarised frontiers, and exchanges of fire are not uncommon.

Lieutenant-General Ranbir Singh, the Indian army's director-general of military operations, told reporters in New Delhi that yesterday's attack bore the hallmarks of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Evidence gathered at the scene indicated the attackers were foreign and their equipment bore Pakistani markings, he added.

"Our men are ready to give a befitting response," Lt-Gen Singh said in response to a reporter's question. He did not elaborate.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned what he called the "cowardly terror attack". "I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," he said in a series of Twitter posts.

The raid came as tensions were already running high in India's only Muslim-majority region, which has faced more than two months of protests following the July 8 killing of the commander of another Pakistan-based group.

In an even stronger response, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted: "Pakistan is a terrorist state and should be identified and isolated as such."

Pakistan rejected allegations that it was involved. "India immediately puts blame on Pakistan without doing any investigation. We reject this," Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria told Reuters.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 over Kashmir, which is divided between them. Both claim the former princely state in full.

Most of the fatalities happened in a tent that caught fire, Lt-Gen Singh told the briefing in New Delhi.

He had informed his Pakistani counterpart of his findings, which linked the attack on Uri to a similar raid in January on an Indian Air Force base in Punjab that India also blames on Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Mr Singh, the Home Minister, chaired a crisis meeting in New Delhi and cancelled trips to Russia and the United States.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and the army chief of staff headed to Uri, roughly halfway between Indian Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar and Islamabad, to investigate the attack.

US ambassador to India Richard Verma also "strongly condemned" the Uri attack, which comes weeks after Secretary of State John Kerry visited New Delhi.

REUTERS

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on September 19, 2016, with the headline India blames Pakistan for raid that kills 17 troops. Subscribe