India s foreign minister says Kashmir attackers must face justice

NEW DELHI – India’s foreign minister said on May 1 that those who planned and carried out an attack in Kashmir last week that left 26 men dead “must be brought to justice”.

New Delhi blames Pakistan for the gun attack on April 22 on civilians at the tourist site of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Islamabad has rejected the charge and both countries have since exchanged gunfire in Kashmir and issued a raft of tit-for-tat punitive diplomatic measures.

“Its perpetrators, backers and planners must be brought to justice,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in a statement, following a conversation with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the evening of April 30 in which they discussed the attack.

Mr Rubio also spoke to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and, in a US read-out of the call, told Mr Sharif of the “need to condemn the terror attack” in Kashmir.

Indian and Pakistani soldiers fired at each other overnight along the Line of Control, the de facto border in contested Kashmir, the Indian army said.

It was the seventh straight night that gunfire was reported by India.

“During the night... Pakistan Army posts initiated unprovoked small-arms fire across the Line of Control opposite Kupwara, Uri and Akhnoor,” the army said in a statement.

“These were responded proportionately by the Indian Army.”

There were no reported casualties and there was no immediate confirmation from Pakistan.

Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men accused of carrying out the Kashmir attack – two Pakistanis and an Indian – who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the military “complete operational freedom” to respond to the attack during a closed-door meeting on April 29, a senior government source told AFP.