India says troops cross Kashmir border to attack as crisis escalates

Pakistan says two of its soldiers are killed and an Indian soldier captured on its side of contested territory’s border

 Indian soldiers guard a border fence at an outpost along the line of control in Suchit-Garh. Photograph: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images

Jon Boone in Islamabad andMichael Safi in Delhi-Thursday 29 September 2016

Elite troops have launched “surgical strikes” on Pakistan-based terrorists in the contested territory of Kashmir, India said on Thursday, in a major escalation of a deepening crisis between the nuclear-armed rivals.

The Indian army said troops conducted multiple nighttime raids across the line of control (LOC), the ceasefire line agreed in 1972 that divides the Himalayan region, to attack militants preparing to cross into Indian-controlled territory.

Pakistan said two of its soldiers had been killed in exchanges of fire, but denied India had made any targeted strikes. Pakistan later captured an Indian soldier on its side of the border, military officials from both countries said. An Indian army spokesman said the soldier had inadvertently crossed the frontier and had nothing to do with the earlier raids.

It is the first time the Indian army has publicly acknowledged that its troops have launched raids across the LOC. Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, India’s director general of military operations, said there were “significant casualties … to terrorists and those trying to shield them”.

Pakistan dismissed the Indian account as a lie. The army said two soldiers had been killed and nine injured in cross-border shelling. “The notion of a surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists’ bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by India to create false effects.” Pakistani troops had responded to unprovoked firing from India, it said.

The Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, condemned the “unprovoked and naked aggression of Indian forces”.

Senior Indian government sources said special forces had crossed on foot into Pakistan-controlled territory to strike up to eight hideouts militants were using to shelter before crossing into Indian-administered territory.

Intelligence in recent days had shown large numbers of people leaving training facilities to prepare to cross, sources said. No Indian troops were killed in the operation and no further attacks are planned, they said.

The United Nations urged both sides to exercise restraint and resolve their differences through dialogue. Stephane Dujarric, a UN spokesman, said officials were following the increase in tensions in Kashmir with great concern. UN military observers were in contact with both sides to try to obtain further information, he said.

The violence follows at least nine clashes in two months between Indian security forces in Kashmir and militants from across the ceasefire line. Violent protests and a homegrown insurgency have also raged in the disputed region since July, leading to more than 80 civilian deaths.

Indian officials said the number of incursions across the LOC, which had declined in the past five years, had surged since the beginning of the summer’s unrest. People were crossing over in teams of four and showing evidence of military training, they said.

An Indian border security force soldier near Jammu in India. Photograph: Channi Anand/AP

The raids were the first military response to an attack on an Indian army outpost in Uri, close to the LOC, on 18 September.India blamed the assault, in which 19 soldiers were killed, on Pakistan-sponsored militants. It provoked calls for India to drop its policy of so-called strategic restraint against its neighbour.

India has launched a diplomatic offensive in the aftermath of the attack, denouncing Pakistan at the UN as hosting the “Ivy League of terrorism” and voicing support for separatists in Balochistan, a restive Pakistani province.

Islamabad says India has provided no evidence the attack was the work of Pakistan-based militants or the country’s intelligence agencies, which have long been accused of links to anti-India jihadi groups.

Zahid Hussain, a Pakistani security analyst, describedThursday’s attacks as a “very serious escalation”. “We have seen firing on the line of control before, but this is much more dangerous in the context of the rising tension between the two sides,” he said. “I am not saying that this could lead to a full state confrontation, but this is how things start to get out of control.”

India last announced it had conducted cross-border strikes in June 2015, when it targeted rebel camps in Myanmar in response to an ambush that killed at least 18 Indian soldiers in the north-eastern state of Manipur. Delhi described the raid as unprecedented at the time and signalled similar tactics could be used along its western border with Pakistan.

On Wednesday, in a sign of deepening Pakistani isolation in the region, India and three other countries announced they would boycot the forthcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit, which was scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November.

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has also raised the possibility of Delhi altering or walking away from a major river-sharing agreement that permits Pakistan to draw water from three rivers that flow downstream from India, providing water to 65% of the country’s landmass.