India is weighing its options after the attack on an army base in Uri, Kashmir, blamed on a Pakistan-based terror outfit, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired a high-level meeting amid strident calls for military action on terror camps in PoK.

The death toll in the pre-dawn attack, meanwhile, rose to 18 after Sepoy K Vikas Janardhan, who was airlifted to the Army Research and Referral Hospital after being critically injured, succumbed to injuries.

As the worst ever attack on the Army in many years continued to spark outrage and triggered calls for Pakistan’s diplomatic isolation, Union Information and Broadcasting minister M Venkaiah Naidu said India will have to respond and punish the perpetrators of the attack and “can no more take it lying down”.

Shiv Sena talks tough

Key BJP ally Shiv Sena, while needling Modi on the Uri attack, said if he does not have the “courage to strike Pakistan” like the US did to eliminate Osama Bin Laden, there is no use of building an international image.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag, besides other senior officials, attended the meeting convened by Modi.

The top security brass briefed the Prime Minister on the prevailing ground situation in the Kashmir Valley in the wake of the terror attack, official sources said.

The Defence Minister and the Army Chief had visited Kashmir after the attack yesterday. “We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished,” Modi had said.

The assertion by Modi triggered considerable speculation about the options that India could exercise in the current situation. A swift, surgical strike on terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) was among the options that figured in the speculation, but experts also cautioned against consequences and damages that an escalation could pose if it goes out of hand.

Situation reviewed

Separately, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, and the top security brass met to review the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in the border areas.

Doval, Gen Suhag and top officials of the ministries of Home and Defence, paramilitary forces and chiefs of intelligence agencies briefed the meeting on the latest situation in the Valley, as well as along the Line of Control (LoC), official sources said.

Options ahead

Possible strategies to deal with the fresh challenges arising out of the terror attack at the Army Brigade Headquarters, located along the LoC, was also discussed at the meeting.

A team of the National Investigation Agency is also expected to visit Uri to gather leads and other evidence from the attack site close to the Line of Control (LoC).

DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh yesterday said all the four killed militants were foreign terrorists and had carried with them items which had Pakistani markings and that initial reports indicated that they belonged to Jaish-E-Mohammed (JeM) tanzeem.

A swift, surgical strike on terror camps in PoK was among the options, but experts cautioned against consequences and damages that an escalation could pose, if it goes out of hand.

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