Delhi finds beaten track useful--Pak given time; Sharif praises Burhan

Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar (left) gestures while talking
 to Foreign Secretary Aizaz (file photo: AFP)

Charu Sudan Kasturi, TT, New Delhi, Sept. 21: India today asked Pakistan to act against terror groups and offered to share evidence on the identities of the Uri terrorists in the first formal diplomatic contact between the neighbours since the Sunday attack.

Foreign secretary S. Jaishankar summoned Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit to the foreign office at 6.30pm to deliver a message that represents a return to the practice - followed by successive Indian governments - of testing Islamabad on its will to clamp down on terrorists.

The foreign office said India was now expecting a response from Pakistan, signalling New Delhi's willingness to wait for one. The position stands in contrast with speculation of immediate surgical strikes, triggered by high-decibel rhetoric by the Narendra Modi government and BJP leaders.

Three senior officials familiar with the administration's thinking independently told The Telegraph that the summons and the offer to share evidence did not mean other options - including military ones - were completely ruled out.

The Prime Minister had committed to ensuring that the masterminds of the terror attack at the army camp in Uri - in which 18 soldiers died -would not go unpunished, and senior BJP leaders have demanded that the government take "the entire jaw" in revenge for "a tooth"."

But the three officials also said Jaishankar's summons were the result of worries that the political rhetoric coming out of India risked damaging its diplomatic options, and were timed to try and pull back from the brink.

"If the government of Pakistan wishes to investigate these cross-border attacks, India is ready to provide fingerprints and DNA samples of terrorists killed in the Uri and Poonch incidents," Jaishankar told Basit, according to foreign ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup, referring also to a second attack near the Line of Control earlier this week. "We now expect a response from the government of Pakistan."

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif spoke late tonight - India time - at the UN General Assembly, in an address where he criticised New Delhi for the spate of violence in Kashmir since July.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif speaking
at the UN General Assembly

The Indian government was concerned, officials said, about not allowing Sharif to appear more statesmanlike than India through an offer of detente in his speech. Offering Pakistan the tiniest of openings before Sharif spoke, to suggest India was willing to try out diplomacy before considering other options, was important.

As the foreign office had anticipated, Sharif did offer fresh talks with India - though he accused New Delhi of setting "unacceptable preconditions" for dialogue.

"Today, from this rostrum, I would also like to reiterate our offer to India to enter into a serious and sustained dialogue for the peaceful resolution of all outstanding disputes, especially Jammu and Kashmir," Sharif said.

The Pakistan Prime Minister described Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen militant whose killing in July sparked the wave of protests in Kashmir, as a "young leader murdered by Indian forces".

Sharif made no mention of the Uri attack. India said late tonight that Sharif's attempt to "glorify" Wani showed Pakistan's continued "attachment to terrorism".

The evidence from the Uri attack that the Indian foreign ministry has so far received establishes that the terrorists came from across the border but does not offer the conclusive links New Delhi would have liked between the attackers and state actors in Pakistan.

The evidence includes GPS sets with coordinates of locations they came from and the route they followed to the army camp in Uri. Investigators have also recovered grenades with Pakistani markings, communication matrix sheets, communication equipment and food, medicines and clothes from Pakistan.

That is why Jaishankar, in his meeting with Basit, stressed on Pakistan's responsibility to live up to a commitment former President Pervez Musharraf had made in 2004 to not allow his country's territory to be used for terrorism against India, officials said.

"The latest terrorist attack in Uri only underlines that the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan remains active," Swarup said. "We demand that Pakistan lives up to its public commitment to refrain from supporting and sponsoring terrorism against India."

But India has not yet shared any evidence - not even the DNA samples and fingerprints of the attackers - with Pakistan. India plans to share these first with key partners, including the US, during foreign minister Sushma Swaraj's New York visit.

In the absence of clinching evidence of Pakistan state support to the Uri attack, a military move across the border risks being viewed internationally as a disproportionate reaction to a terror attack by a non-state actor.

The foreign office has also cautioned the political leadership that an escalatory military step against Pakistan could end up only further internationalising the Kashmir dispute -- something India has long tried to avoid.