Pak will pay for Jammu misadventure: Nirmala
Islamabad warns against cross-LoC action; 1 dead in CRPF camp attack
India and Pakistan traded dire warnings on Monday in the aftermath of the weekend strike on Jammu’s Sunjuwan military station, scaling up the prospect of cross-border retaliation.
Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman accused Pakistan of helping Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militants launch the attack, warning that the neighbour “will have to pay for this misadventure” as she visited the camp where five soldiers and a civilian were killed.
Her remarks came hours after a gunfight broke out between security forces and militants after their attempt to strike a CRPF camp here was foiled, killing a paramilitary jawan.
Pakistan earlier warned New Delhi to “refrain from any misadventure across the Line of Control...” in an apparent reference to India’s military action of September 29, 2016 that was described as a “surgical strike” to avenge a militant attack on an army base in Uri that led to the deaths of 19 soldiers.
“Terrorists belonged to Jaishe-Mohammed, sponsored by Azhar Masood residing in Pakistan and deriving support from there,” Sitharaman said, citing intelligence reports that said the attackers were being controlled by handlers from across the border. India has long been asking for JeM chief Masood Azhar to be designated an international terrorist by the United Nations, a move that has been blocked by China.
“Evidence is being scrutinised by the National Investigation Agency. Pakistan is expanding the arch of terror to areas south of Pir Panjal and resorting to ceasefire violations to assist infiltration,” Sitharaman added.
But JJ&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said hours earlier that a dialogue with Pakistan “was the only option” to end violence in the Jammu and Kashmir. “The people of Jammu & Kashmir are suffering. We have to talk because war is not an option,” she said.
Security forces and militants continued to exchange fire in the heart of Srinagar till late on Monday night after a foiled attack on a CRPF camp left a trooper dead and a policeman critically injured.
CRPF trooper Mujahid Khan, a resident of Bihar and part of the 49 Battalion, was killed in the firing. The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) claimed responsibility for the attack.
As darkness enveloped the Karan Nagar area, loud explosions and the rattle of automatic gunfire could be heard intermittently, officials and residents said.
The site of the ongoing encounter is barely 300 metres from the SMHS Hospital from where Pakistani LeT militant Naveed Jhatt alias Abu Hunzullah escaped on February 6 after two policemen were killed.
Meanwhile, the LeT in a statement to a local agency on Monday lauded Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants for the attack on the Sunjuwan military station in Jammu on Saturday in which nine people were killed, including three militants.
Earlier in the day, local news agencies whom the militants generally send their statements to had mis-interpreted the LeT statement as a claim that Lashkar militants were involved in both attacks.
The militants, whom security forces claimed to be from the JeM, had launched a pre-dawn attack on the military station housing soldiers of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry’s 36th Brigade and their families on Saturday.
A soldier’s father and five military personnel were killed in the assault that continued till Sunday night, while about a dozen people were wounded.
Jaish, however has not officially claimed responsibility -many Kashmir watchers believe that the fact that majority of the soldiers killed were Kashmiris and the attackers also killed a civilian and fired upon a pregnant woman can be the reason.
Jaish had promptly claimed resposibility for the December 31 attack on a CRPF camp in Pulwama in which five soldiers were killed.
About encounter in Srinagar, a CRPF spokesperson said a guard at the Karan Nagar camp fired when he noticed two armed men walking towards the gates around 4am. “The duo ran towards the bylanes and fired at a search party from abandoned buildings nearby. The gunfight is on,” he said.
In New Delhi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh held a high-level review meeting where he asked security forces posted in the J&K to emphasise on securing outer perimeters of army and paramilitary camps.
A home ministry official said the direction from the Home Minister came during the security review meetingwhich was also attended by Intelligence Bureau Director Rajiv Jain and Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba.
Besieged by the back-to-back militant attacks and cross-border firing and shelling by the Pakistani army, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti called for a dialogue with the neighbouring nation for peace to return to the state.
“A dialogue with Pakistan is necessary if we are to end the bloodshed. I know I will be labelled anti-national by news anchors tonight but that doesn’t matter. The people of J&K are suffering. We have to talk because war is not an option,” she said in a series of tweets.