India's top military commander in Kashmir has told mothers to get their militant sons to surrender or see them dead, as security forces intensified a crackdown in the disputed region after a suicide bomber killed 40 paramilitary police.
The Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militant group claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack on a security convoy, but the Pakistani government has denied any link to the blast, which has ramped up tension between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, facing a general election by May, has come under domestic pressure to exact revenge, and has said he has given a free hand to security forces to administer a "strong response".
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan denied in a televised address that his country had anything to do with the bombing. He said Pakistan and was ready to talk with India on terrorism but would retaliate if attacked.
The Indian commander in its part of divided Kashmir, Lieutenant-General K.J.S. Dhillon accused Pakistan's main Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency of "controlling" the deadliest attack on security forces in three decades of insurgency in the Muslim-majority region.
"I would request all the mothers in Kashmir to please request their sons who have joined terrorism to surrender and get back to the mainstream," Dhillon told reporters in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state.
"Otherwise anyone who has picked up the gun will be killed."
The bomb attack was carried out by a 20-year-old man whose parents said had joined a militant group after being beaten by Indian troops three years ago.
India has long blamed Pakistan for the nearly 30-year revolt in Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state.
Muslim Pakistan says it only provides moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people in their struggle for self-determination.
Pakistan has condemned the bombing and on Tuesday it appealed to the United Nations to intervene, in light of the deteriorating security situation.
Indian forces on Monday killed three militants, including the suspected organiser of the bombing, in a 17-hour military operation in which five troops and a civilian were also killed.
Australian Associated Press