AFP :
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given India’s military “operational freedom” to respond to a deadly attack in Kashmir last week, a senior government source told AFP Tuesday, after New Delhi blamed it on nuclear-armed arch-rival Pakistan.
Modi told army and security chiefs in a closed-door meeting that it was India’s “national resolve to deal a crushing blow to terrorism”, the source said.
Modi said that the armed forces had the “complete operational freedom to decide on the mode, targets, and timing of our response to the terror attack on civilians in Kashmir”, the source added.
Meanwhile, Tensions between India and Pakistan continue to simmer a week after a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Indian authorities announced the closure of numerous tourist sites in the region, which both countries have claimed since independence in 1947, on Tuesday, and Pakistan said it is preparing legal action over New Delhi’s punitive suspension of an important water treaty.
Meanwhile, fire was exchanged along the Line of Control (LoC), the 740km (460-mile) de facto border separating the Indian and Pakistani-controlled areas of Kashmir, for a fifth straight night. Pakistan said it had downed a drone, with fears of an escalation between the nuclear powers bubbling.
The government of Indian-administered Kashmir announced it had shut 48 out of 87 government-approved tourist destinations in the scenic Himalayan region.
