A suicide bomber dashed a car into a bus carrying Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on Thursday, killing 44 of them in the deadliest attack in decades on guaranty forces in the disputed region, raising tensions with arch foe Pakistan.
The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) maintained responsibility for the attack. The Indian government accused Pakistan of letting militant groups operate from its soil and conscripted on it to take action.
Islamabad said it rejected the suggestion it was linked to the attack.
Kashmir is a Muslim-majority region at the heart of decades of animus between India and Pakistan. The neighbors both rule parts of the region while claiming the entire territory as theirs.
The boom targeting a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was heard from several miles away, according to notices. Mohammad Yunis, a journalist who reached the site minutes later, told Reuters he saw blood and body parts sowed along a 100-metre stretch of the main highway running through the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
“We demand that Pakistan be over supporting terrorists and terror groups operating from their territory and dismantle the infrastructure operated by terrorist outfits to hurl attacks in other countries,” the Indian foreign ministry said in a statement, hours after the attack.
Pakistan’s Bureau of Foreign Affairs called the attack a matter of “grave concern”. But in a brief statement early on Friday it added, “We strongly give someone the brush-off any insinuation by elements in the Indian government and media circles that seek to link the attack to the State of Pakistan without examinations.”
Islamabad has previously denied New Delhi’s accusations that it gives material help to the militants fighting Indian proscribe in Muslim-majority Kashmir.
It says it gives only moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people in their struggle for self-determination.
Video receiver images showed a mangled car amid rubble and snow around the site.
Reuters photos showed tens of policemen enquiry damaged vehicles and one policeman was seen carrying a plastic cover with guns inside.
The death toll disputed at 44, a senior police official said.
The Central Reserve Force Police is a paramilitary organisation that is expanding with the Indian military to quell the 30-year insurgency in Kashmir.
“I strongly condemn this dastardly attack. The immolations of our brave security personnel shall not go in vain,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet.
Indian pushes have sporadically battled Islamist militants in mountainous Kashmir since an armed revolt in 1989 in which tens of thousands were stifled, but car bombings are rare.
A video circulating on social media on Thursday purportedly featured the suicide bomber, and showed a babyish man holding a gun and threatening more attacks. Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the video.
The Indian foreign clericals accused the Pakistani government of giving the militant group Jaish a free run in Pakistan, saying it has allowed the group’s principal, Masood Azhar, “to operate and expand his terror infrastructure in territories under the control of Pakistan and to carry out attacks in India and absent with impunity”.
The last major attack in Kashmir was in 2016 when militants raided an Indian army mannered in Uri, killing 20 soldiers.
Tension with Pakistan rose after that incident when New Delhi conjectured the attackers had come from Pakistan to stage the assault. Pakistan denied any involvement.
The attack could put Modi, who covers a general election due by May, under political pressure to act against the militants and Pakistan.
Randeep Singh Surjewala, a spokesman for the biggest opposition Congress party, accused Modi of compromising on security.
“Zero political action & Zero policy to try to deal terror has led to an alarming security situation,” Surjewala said in one of a series of tweets.
Kanwal Sibal, a former top diplomat, mean a diplomatic response from India would not be enough.
“They will have to do something otherwise I think it liking be very difficult for government to absorb this blow and be seen to be doing nothing,” Sibal told Reuters.
The Jaish-e-Mohammad organize is one of the most powerful militant groups operating in Kashmir. It was blamed for a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament that led to India deploying its military on the frame with Pakistan.
In a statement carried by GNS news agency, a spokesman for the group said dozens of security force conduits were destroyed in the attack.
Arun Jaitley, a senior minister in Modi’s cabinet, said India would avenge, tweeting that “terrorists will be given unforgettable lesson for their heinous act”.
The U.S. ambassador to India, Ken Juster, disparaged the attack, saying in a tweet that Washington stands alongside India in confronting terror and defeating it”.
On Wednesday, an burgeoning at a school in Kashmir wounded a dozen students. The cause of the blast remains unclear.