(PTI)
New Delhi, Sept 21: India Wednesday gave Pakistan evidence of involvement of Pak-based terrorists in the Uri attack and demanded that it refrain from supporting and sponsoring terrorism directed against this country.
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit and told him that latest terrorist attack in Uri only underlines that the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan remains active. Jaishankar provided Basit with the content of GPS recovered from the bodies of terrorists with coordinates that indicate the point and time of infiltration across the LoC and the subsequent route to the terror attack site and grenades with Pakistani markings as evidence of Pakistan’s role in Uri attack in which 18 jawans were killed.
“If the Government of Pakistan wishes to investigate these cross-border attacks, India is ready to provide fingerprints and DNA samples of terrorists killed in the Uri and Poonch incidents,” he told the Pakistan envoy. Asserting that the latest terrorist attack in Uri only underlines that the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan remains active, Jaishankar demanded that Pakistan lives up to its public commitment to refrain from supporting and sponsoring terrorism against India.
He also reminded Basit that the Pakistan government had made a solemn commitment in January 2004 to not allow its soil or territory under its control to be used for terrorism against India. “The persistent and growing violation of this undertaking is a matter of very serious concern,” he told Basit.
Inset 1: ‘Serious about punishing culprits’
New Delhi: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar Wednesday said government is “serious” about punishing those responsible for the deadly Uri attack as it will “not sleep over” terror being pushed into India from across the border. He also dismissed reports about Pakistan’s threat of use of tactical nukes, saying that “empty vessel makes bigger noise” and asserted that steps will be taken to ensure that incidents like Uri strike are not repeated.
Inset 2: Attackers belong to LeT: Probe
Uri: The four terrorists who stormed an army base in Uri sector Sunday killing 18 soldiers belonged to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and managed to sneak in by cutting the perimeter fencing of the highly-guarded army installation at two places, investigations have shown. In an indication that the terrorists were well-versed of the layout of the army base close to the Line of Control(LoC), the assailants locked the cooking room and store from outside to prevent the soldiers from leaving before setting them afire, sources privy to the probe said Wednesday. The investigators are not ruling out “insider help” to the terrorists in view of the precise nature of the actions undertaken by the intruders once inside the army base, the sources said.
