NEW YORK – Former Indian army commander lieutenant general D.S. Hooda revealed that Indian-made ammunition had been likely used Pulwama attack, US-based newspaper reported.
New York Times quoted Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, an Indian army commander as saying, “It is not possible to bring such massive amounts of explosives by infiltrating the border.”
General Hooda further added that the material may have been taken from stashes of explosives being used to blast a mountainside to broaden the highway to Jammu, the same road where the attack occurred.
India had accused Pakistan of orchestrating a suicide bombing that killed dozens of soldiers in occupied Kashmir. Pakistan has strongly rejected the Indian claim, urging New Delhi to avoid such “sad and baseless knee-jerk reactions”.
At least 44 Indian paramilitary soldiers were killed on Thursday in Indian-occupied Kashmir in one the deadliest attacks. The attack saw explosives packed inside a van rip through buses in a convoy of 78 vehicles carrying some 2,500 members of the paramilitary CRPF.
Two blue buses carrying around 35 people each bore the brunt of the massive blast, heard miles away, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the city of Srinagar on the main highway to Jammu.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since independence. Rebels have been fighting for an independent Kashmir, or a merger with Pakistan, for 30 years.
Last year was the deadliest in a decade, with rights monitors saying almost 600 Kashmiri people died, most of them civilians. Thousands more have been maimed in recent years by pellet-firing shotguns used by Indian forces.