India summons Pak envoy over Uri attack

NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday summoned Pakistan’s envoy in New Delhi to formally register its protest over Sunday’s deadly attack in Uri, as the country’s diplomats brainstormed options to ‘isolate’ Islamabad at the world stage.

India’s Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar spoke with Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit about the attack, which claimed the lives of 18 Indian soldiers, at India’s Ministry of External Affairs.



“We demanded that Pakistan live up to its public commitment of not allowing terror against India,” the ministry’s spokesman, Vikas Swarup, said after the meeting. “The Uri attack shows that terror machinery in Pakistan is still thriving,” he said, claiming that there is ‘irrefutable evidence’ that the attack was mounted with support from Pakistani authorities.

“We have recovered a number of items like Pakistan marked grenades, communication equipment and food and medicines made in Pakistan,” Swarup claimed. “The foreign secretary told the Pakistani high commissioner that even now two encounters between terrorists and Indian army are under way at the border,” he added.

Interestingly, India’s Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar also conceded that “something may have gone wrong” while talking about the Uri attack at a function in New Delhi.



“Obviously something must have been wrong...although I will not go into details of it. Obviously, it’s a very sensitive matter. When something goes wrong, while you try to correct it, you should also ensure it does not happen again. We will definitely find out what went wrong and also take steps to ensure it doesn’t go wrong,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2016.