Four militants were confirmed killed after penetrating the base in Uri near the Lin e of Control with Pakistan, an army spokesperson said.
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It was the worst attack on the Indian Army in many years.
A weekly bus service between Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir and Muzaffarabad, the capital on the Pakistani side, operated as normal on Monday however.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quick to denounce the killings.
“I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished”, Modi said in a series of Twitter posts.
Pakistan has become a hub of terrorism and is resorting to subversive activities as it can not win an open war with India, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said today.
Demonstrations began in July after the Indian army killed Burhan Wani, the commander of the separatist group Hizbul Mujaheedin. Since then, protests against Indian rule in Kashmir and clashes between separatists and soldiers have claimed over 70 lives.
Foreign Office (FO) in a statement today said that in line with Pakistan’s stance, the outcome document clearly opposes attempts to equate “legitimate” struggle for the right to self-determination with terrorism.
“It does not matter what Pakistan says”, he told reporters here.
Condemnations continued to pour in against the Uri attack with France calling on every State to fight effectively against terrorist groups operating from its territory against other countries.
Parrikar and Dalbir Singh visited Srinagar yesterday to take stock of the situation and review the overall security in Kashmir.
To begin with, the United States does not even endorse Pakistan’s policy of highlighting the unrest in Kashmir as an “international problem”; rather the White House has always endorsed India’s policy of considering the issues a “bilateral problem”. He said, it is fact that Pakistan is a birth-place of terrorism.
“The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties”.
Some Indian civil society members believe New Delhi can not exonerate itself from the responsibility by accusing Islamabad of creating unrest in the valley. It will be similar to the action carried out by the Indian Army’s Special Forces against Naga insurgents, after crossing into Myanmar.
Before this attack, 102 people had been killed in separatist violence in India’s part of the Himalayan region this year.
“We demand a solution to the Kashmir conflict based on freely expressed wishes of the people”. However, the failure of Modi’s rapprochementeffort towards Pakistan has forced the former into the other extreme: Modi’s newly adopted policy of toying with Pakistan’s internal trouble-prone areas in order to ward off pressure on Kashmir and other internal issues is as problematicas New Dehli’s policy of engaging with the civilian government sitting in Islamabad earlier.
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But most Kashmir observers don’t see it happening in the near future. “Only this way can they safeguard peace and security in their region”, he said.
