17 soldiers killed in Kashmir in deadliest militant attack since 2014

Heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the Army in North Kashmir’s Uri town in the wee hours today, killing 17 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four ultras were neutralised.

Explosions and gunfire erupted as the militants attacked the camp, which is located barely few metres away from the Army’s Brigade Headquarters in Uri town, 102 kms from here, around 4 AM, official sources said.

The jawans of the Dogra Regiment were sleeping in a tent which caught fire due the explosion. The fire also engulfed the nearby barracks, the sources said.

17 jawans were killed in the terror attack, the Northern Command of the Army said.

Nineteen other personnel were injured in the strike in which four militants were killed.

“A group of heavily armed terrorists targeted the rear administrative base of a unit at Uri, Kashmir. In the counter action, four terrorists have been eliminated and combing operations are in progress,” the Army said in a statement.

“The administrative base had large strength of troops of units turning over after their tour of duty who were stationed in tents/temporary shelters which caught fire, and resulted in heavy casualties. We salute the sacrifice of 17 soldiers who were martyred in the operation,” the statement said.

Helicopters from the Army’s 19 divisional headquarters in Baramulla have been pressed into service and the injured Army personnel have been evacuated from the encounter site, the sources said.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag are rushing to Kashmir in the wake of terror attack in Uri.

The Home Minister has also called an emergency meeting to review the situation arising out of the terror attack.

The toll is far worse than from a similar raid on an army base in Punjab in January that India has blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

The raid comes amid heightened tension in India's only Muslim-majority region, which has faced more than two months of protests following the July 8 killing of a popular separatist field commander.

At least 78 civilians have been killed and thousands injured in street clashes with the Indian security forces, who have been criticised by human rights groups for using excessive force including shotguns that fire pellets that have blinded people.

Force activation

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in a series of Twitter posts that he had spoken to the region's political and military leadership and had instructed senior officials to monitor the situation.

He cancelled planned trips to Russia and the United States.

“We have activated the entire force in and around Uri sector to step up security and launch combing operations,” a senior Home Ministry official told Reuters.

“It is clearly a case of cross-border terror attack. We don't know which militant group is involved,” this official added.

There has been no claim of responsibility.

The military death toll was the worst in Kashmir at least since a raid in December 2014, also near Uri which is to the west of the region's main city of Srinagar, in which eight soldiers and three police were killed.

India accuses Pakistan of supporting militant attacks in its northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule only in part.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently raised the stakes in their decades-old feud by expressing support for separatists within Pakistan.

Pakistan denies any role in cross-border terrorism, and has called on the United Nations and the international community to investigate atrocities it alleges have been committed by the security forces in Indian-ruled Kashmir.

UN meet

The United Nations will soon hold its annual general assembly in New York, where Kashmir is likely to come onto the agenda.

Separately, a prominent Kashmiri rights activist has been held in Srinagar after being prevented from catching a flight to a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.

Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours have been on edge since the New-Year attack on an Indian air force base in Punjab, near the border with Pakistan, that killed seven uniformed men.

India has blamed a Pakistan-based militant group for that attack but, after initial progress, an attempt to conduct a joint investigation has lost momentum. The two sides have frozen a tentative peace dialogue.

COMMENT NOW