‘GIVE UP, KASHMIR MILITANTS’

Surrender or be killed, says India’s military chief in Kashmir

INDIA’S top military commander in Kashmir yesterday told mothers to get their militant sons to surrender or see them dead, as security forces intensified a crackdown in the disputed region after a suicide bomber killed 40 paramilitary police.

The Pakistan-based Jaish-eMohammad militant group claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack on a security convoy, but the Pakistani government denied any link to the blast, which ramped up tension between the rivals.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, facing a general election by May, is under pressure to exact revenge, and said he had given a free hand to security forces to administer a “strong response”.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan denied that his country had anything to do with the bombing. He said Pakistan was ready to talk to India on terrorism, but would retaliate if attacked.

The Indian commander in its part of Kashmir, Lieutenant-General K.J.S. Dhillon, accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency of “controlling” the deadliest attack on security forces in three decades of insurgency in the Muslim-majority region.

“I would request all the mothers in Kashmir to please request their sons who have joined terrorism to surrender and get back to the mainstream,” Dhillon said here, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state.

“Otherwise, anyone who has picked up the gun will be killed.”

The bomb attack was carried out by a 20-year-old man whose parents said had joined a militant group after being beaten by Indian troops three years ago.

India has long blamed Pakistan for the nearly 30-year revolt in Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state.

Pakistan said it only provided moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people in their struggle for self-determination.

Pakistan had condemned the bombing and yesterday appealed to the United Nations to intervene, in light of the deteriorating security situation.