Forces given free hand to retaliate Army officer killed, soldier injured in blast across LOC

PULWAMA ATTACK Modi assures of action against Pakistan, thousands turn up for funerals of jawans

PANDHARKAWDA (MAHARASHTRA)/ NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned up the heat on Pakistan on Saturday, saying he had given the armed forces a free hand to punish the masterminds of the suicide bombing that killed 45 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in the deadliest terrorist attack ever in Kashmir.

“How, when, where and who will punish the killers and their promoters will be decided by our forces, who are capable of dealing with the situation,” Modi said at a public meeting in this Maharashtra town, two days after the attack for which the Pakistan-backed Jaish-e-mohammad (JEM) has claimed responsibility.

Modi, who virtually launched the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) election campaign from Pandharkawda, said he could understand public anguish over the attack, carried out by a 22-year-old Pulwama resident who drove a car packed with explosives into a CRPF bus, part of a 78-vehicle convoy on its way from one transit camp in Jammu to another in Srinagar.

“Wherever the terror groups and the perpetrators may hide, our security forces will flush them out and punish them,” the PM said at the meeting at which two minutes of silence was observed to pay homage to the troopers who died in the attack. “Be patient and trust them.”

He did not mention Pakistan by name. “A nation which came into existence after Partition and encourages terror activities, and which is on the verge of bankruptcy, has now become the second name for terror,” Modi said.

In other developments on Saturday and overnight, Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, Ajay Bisaria, arrived in New Delhi for consultations with senior officials and the political leadership over the fallout of the Pulwama terror attack, and US National Security Advisor, John Bolton, told his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, on the phone that the US supported India’s SRINAGAR: Just two days after 40 CRPF jawans were killed in a suicide attack in Pulwana, an army officer was killed and a soldier injured in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district on Saturday, defence spokesperson Lt Col Devender Anand said.

The blast took place in the Laam area of Rajouri’s Nowshera sector.

Sources said the officer and soldier, who were out on patrol, spotted freshly-dug soil on the dirt track.

“They were checking the spot when the blast took place,” army sources who did not want to be named said.

The IED appears to have been planted recently by elements