Three dead in attack on Indian army base

ARMED militants stormed a major Indian army base near the frontier with Pakistan early yesterday, killing three soldiers, as tensions between the two neighbours ran high after weeks of cross-border firing.

Police said four militants had also been killed in a stand-off with security forces inside the command centre in northern Jammu and Kashmir state that lasted most of the day.

It was the most audacious attack on an Indian military base since September, when 19 soldiers were killed in an assault that India blamed on Pakistanbased militants.

“All the four militants have been killed. Three soldiers including a major died in the firefight,” a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity.

The attack came as Pakistan’s hugely popular military chief General Raheel Sharif handed over to his successor yesterdaywith a warning to India not to mistake his country’s “restraint” for weakness.

“It clearly suggests there is an attempt by certain groups to sabotage the apparent peace outreach by Pakistan’s government,”saidMohanGuruswamy, head of the Centre for Policy A lter nat ives t hi nk-ta nk i n New Delhi.

India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of sponsoring militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which it holds responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.