Indian Punjab chief minister calls off meeting with HC

He, however, lauded the efforts of Punjab police and SWAT team for their bravery in killing the three terrorists.

“Pakistan reiterates its condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations”, the ministry said in a statement.

Four police officers including the local superintendent also died in the operation in the usually calm northern state of Punjab.

Throughout the day, bouts of small arms fire echoed across the town of Dinanagar and the paddy fields surrounding it, some 10 miles from the global border, witnesses told Reuters.

Jitendra Singh, a junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office, said he did not rule out Pakistan’s involvement.

State-run All India Radio said that separately police had discovered five bombs on a railway track in the area, causing train services to be suspended. Kamaljit Singh, the auto owner, said they pulled him out of his vehicle and threw him on the road, PTI reported.

While the authorities had so far confirmed only five deaths, unconfirmed reports said the toll was 12.

Al Jazeera’s Nidhi Dutt, reporting from New Delhi, said the attackers were wearing Indian army uniforms.

The police station, an adjoining government hospital, residential quarters inside the police station and nearby private houses were quickly cordoned off by security forces.

A newspaper on Wednesday urged Pakistan to extend “full cooperation” to India’s probe into Punjab’s terror attack “if facts point to a role of elements operating from Pakistani soil”.

For six years, India has pressed Pakistan to put on trial some of its citizens who have been suspected of organising the terrorist attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, that killed more than 160 people.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said he had ordered increased security on the border with Pakistan, although the identity of the attackers was not immediately clear.

In the 1980s Punjab was in the grip of militancy for nearly a decade, with the Indian government fighting Khalistani militants who wanted a separate homeland.

On Monday, India’s opposition Congress party accused Modi of appeasing Pakistan and there were rowdy scenes in India’s parliament, where members of the lower house demanded a resolution condemning the attack.

Some media reports suggested that the attackers had sneaked into Punjab from Indian-controlled Kashmir.

“Inspection of the bodies show they were Muslims”, he said.