Uri attack: India to work on exposing Pak, isolate it internationally; toll 18

New Delhi: Determined to use a calibrated, multi-layered and strategic response to Uri attack, India is likely to expose Pakistan before the world community by furnishing it with actionable evidence regarding its sponsoring of terrorism and press for isolating the nation.

India is also planning to hand over to Pakistan evidence of the four terrorists using Pakistani-marked weapons, food, energy drinks and GPS trackers which they carried to enter Jammu and Kashmir from across the Line of Control.

Indications in this regard came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a nearly two-hour meeting with Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, NSA Ajit Doval, Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag and other top officials to discuss India's response.

Top brass of the government is convinced that India has to launch a calibrated, multi-layered and strategic response and expose Pakistan in international forums like the UN, whose General Assembly is in session, official sources said.

Read: Uri terror strike: Narendra Modi's SAARC appearance remains doubtful

As part of the plans, the Director General of Military Operations will hand over all the evidence linking Pakistan's involvement in Uri attack to his Pakistani counterpart shortly.

At the meeting where External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was conspicuously absent, the top security brass briefed the Prime Minister on the prevailing ground situation in Kashmir Valley in the wake of the terror attack at a Brigade Headquarters in Uri, the sources said.

The Defence Minister and the Army Chief, who visited Kashmir after the terror attack yesterday, also apprised the Prime Minister about their observations, they said.

Heavily-armed terrorists, believed to be from Pakistan-based JeM, had yesterday stormed an army base in Uri in Kashmir, killing 18 jawans.

India has reacted strongly to the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency that sparked an outrage with the Prime Minister strongly condemning it.

The Indian Permanent Mission is to issue a statement taking on Islamabad soon after Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will make his speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Sushma Swaraj will strongly emphasise on Pakistan's involvement in the attack in her UNGA speech on September 26.

The Home Minister and the top officials reviewed the security situation across the country, particular along the western border -- from Punjab to Gujarat, the sources said.

Read: Uri attack: Nobody can tolerate terrorism, says Ansari

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju said India will carefully decide its future course of action in the aftermath of the terror attack in Uri and will not do anything on the basis of what Pakistan says.

"We must not pay heed to Pakistan's reaction. Everything is in front of the people. We will take our next steps carefully. It does not matter what Pakistan says," he told reporters here.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said Pakistan has become a hub of terrorism and is resorting to subversive activities as it cannot win an open war with India. "Pakistan has become a big center of terrorism and is resorting to subversive activities as it cannot win an open war with India," he said on the sidelines of a programme in Guwahati.

"Pakistan is encouraging terrorism and that is a serious matter. We want both the countries to go forward on the path of development peacefully," the Union HRD minister said.

A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) will reach Uri on Monday and begin its inquiry into the deadliest attack on the Army in 14 years.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday paid tribute to the martryed jawans by laying wreaths on the coffins of the martyred soldiers at a somber ceremony held at headquarters of the Chinar Corps.

In a major terror attack, 18 Army jawans and officers were killed and 19 more wounded in Uri close to the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district on Sunday. All the four terrorists involved in the pre-dawn attack at an Army base in the area were also killed in Army’s retaliatory fire, ending a 5-hour-long fight at around 8 am.

A group of four heavily armed militants attacked a battalion centre close to the Army’s 12 Infantry Brigade headquarters on the peripheries of Uri town, 102-km northwest of capital Srinagar, around 3 am. The area falls in close proximity to the LoC from three sides-Hajipir, Kamalkot and Kaman post and the 12 Infantry Brigade is spread over a couple of dozen acres of sloppy land midst pine woods on both sides of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Road. The firing stopped at 8 am after all the terrorists were neutralised.

Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) held Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists responsible for the attack and said that weapons with Pakistani markings were found on the dead terrorists.

India blamed Pakistan for the attack, an allegation which Pakistan angrily refuted. Pakistan claimed that India's charges were "totally baseless and irresponsible."

Pakistan claimed that India had a 'history of blaming Pakistan' after every terror attack. Rajnath Singh on Sunday said that Pakistan should be declared a terrorist state. Military experts have called for India to keep open the military solution to Pakistani aggression across the border, after the Uri attack.