New Dehli: India tightened security on its border with Pakistan on Monday after gunmen stormed a police station in Indian Punjab, killing six people and injuring several others.
Armed police were exchanging fire with the gunmen, who were holed up in the police station in Gurdaspur district near the border with Pakistan, officials said.
Gunshots could be heard on television as security forces in red turbans surrounded the building in the town of Dinanagar, about 20 km from the international border.
Indian police sources said the attackers had entered India from Pakistan a couple of days ago in Jammu and Kashmir, to the north.
Jitendra Singh, a junior minister in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office, said he did not rule out Pakistan’s involvement.
“There have been earlier also reports of Pakistan infiltration and cross-border mischief in this area,” said Singh, whose constituency in the Jammu region borders Gurdaspur.
Further, Modi called for an emergency high-level meeting to discuss the attack, according to The Hindu.
The dead included four civilians and two policemen, said HS Dhillon, a senior Punjab police officer. Some others were injured, he added.
Indian 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 India-Pakistan border”.
“The situation is under control,” Singh told reporters.
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 told Reuters.
Five bombs were also found on a railway track in the state where Indian fought a deadly Sikh insurgency in the 1980s.
The men were thought to have sneaked in from the neighbouring state of Jammu and Kashmir, NDTV said. The police station they stormed was in Gurdaspur district, which borders Pakistan.
Television footage showed a white Maruti car 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.
