India tightened security on the border with Pakistan on Monday after its military said heavily armed men stormed a police station in the northern frontier state of Punjab killing at least nine people and wounding several others.
Indian police managed to overcome the heavily armed men after a 12-hour gun battle. Three policemen and three civilians were also killed, according to the Indian Home Ministry.
The siege focused on an abandoned building where the attackers had holed up. It dragged on because security forces had wanted to capture at least one of the militants alive, a senior government source said.
The group of about five attackers came in a white Maruti-Suzuki car, dressed in army uniforms, said Harcharan Bains, an adviser to Indian Punjab’s chief minister. The attackers took the vehicle at gunpoint from a roadside “dhaba” restaurant, another local politician said.
Television footage showed a white Maruti-Suzuki sedan with its windshield peppered with bullet holes, and broken glass and bullet casings on the passenger seat. What appeared to be improvised explosive devices on railway tracks were also shown.
Five bombs were also found on a railway track in the state, suggesting a attempted coordinated attack, around the time India is marking the anniversary of a near-war with Pakistan in Kargil in 1999.
Jitendra Singh, a junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office, alleged Pakistan involvement. “There have been earlier reports of Pakistan infiltration and cross-border mischief in this area,” said Singh, whose constituency in the Jammu region borders Gurdaspur.
Pakistan, which has fought three wars with India since both nations gained independence in 1947, has denied any involvement in insurgencies in Indian Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.
Federal Home Minister Rajnath Singh said he had spoken to the head of India’s Border Security Force and “instructed him to step up the vigil” on the border.
“The situation is under control,” Singh told reporters.