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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

India, Pakistan spar over Jammu terror attack

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JAMMU/ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday warned Pakistan that it will pay a price for the terror attack on an army camp in Jammu that left five soldiers and a civilian dead in a two-day gunfight.


“Pakistan will have to pay for this misadventure,” Sitharaman told reporters in Jammu. Also on Monday, Pakistan warned India against cross-border strikes in Kashmir region after Indian authorities blamed a Pakistan-based group for the army camp attack.


Saturday’s attack on the camp near Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir, was the worst in months, with five soldiers and the father of one of the soldiers killed and women and children among the 10 wounded.


India said the heavily armed attackers were members of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militant group, drawing criticism from Pakistan about rushing to judgment without a full inquiry.


“It is a well established pattern that Indian officials begin making irresponsible statements and levelling unfounded allegations, even before any proper investigation in any incident has been initiated,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.


India, it said, was making these allegations to divert attention from its brutality in trying to control the armed revolt in Kashmir, and warned against any retaliatory measures across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between the nuclear-armed countries.


“We hope that the international community would urge India to stop the untold atrocities and gross violations of human rights ... and refrain from any misadventure across the Line of Control...” it said.


India has long accused Pakistan of training and arming militants and helping them infiltrate across the heavily militarised Line of Control into Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim majority state.


The head of the Jammu and Kashmir state police, S P Vaid, told reporters over the weekend that they had communications intercepts pointing to the JeM, which has emerged as a top group fighting hundreds of thousands of Indian forces in Kashmir.


The army said the attackers wore fatigues and had assault rifles, a grenade launcher and grenades.


CRPF trooper killed, LeT claims responsibility: Fierce fighting continued between militants and security forces in the heart of Srinagar on Monday after a foiled attack on a CRPF camp left a trooper dead and a policeman critically injured. The LeT claimed responsibility for the attack.


As darkness enveloped the Karan Nagar area, loud explosions and the rattle of automatic gunfire could be intermittently heard, officials and residents said.


The site is barely 300 metres from the SMHS Hospital from where Pakistani LeT militant Naveed Jat alias Abu Hunzullah escaped on February 6 after two policemen were killed.


Police said residents in the vicinity had been evacuated to safety. Internet services were suspended in the area.


A caller identifying himself as Mehmood Shah of the Lashkar-e-Taiba telephoned a local news agency owning responsibility for the attack on the headquarters of the 23 battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force.


Jammu and Kashmir police chief S P Vaid congratulated the “alert CRPF sentry” for averting what could have been a suicide attack on the CRPF camp. — IANS/Reuters


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