Uri Terror Attack: Foreign Secretary Cuts Short Vienna Visit As Centre Plans Next Steps

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has sent the home secretary to Srinagar to review the security in Jammu and Kashmir after the terror attack. Mr Singh held a high-level review meeting in New Delhi where National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and senior Intelligence officers were present. This is the third security meet that the home minister has held in three days.

In Uri in Jammu and Kashmir, the National Investigation Agency, or NIA received blood and other samples from the four terrorists who attacked the army base on Sunday and killed 18 soldiers before being shot dead in an intense three-hour gun battle.

The Army will hand over to the NIA, weapons, ammunition, maps and GPS sets that the terrorists had carried, as the investigation agency pieces together the identity of the terrorists and retraces the route they took to infiltrate into India.

Investigators say the markings on weapons and food recovered from the terrorists establish a clear Pakistani link. The NIA will send the GPS sets to the United States to investigate exactly where they came from.

At a meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed a multi-layered response to the Uri attack with his top minsters and gave the go-ahead to diplomatically isolate Pakistan at all international forums.

Hours later, in a strong message at a session of the UN Human Rights Council, India told Pakistan to "cleanse itself of terrorists" and said the freedom that terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin enjoy in that country, shows its "active support for such personalities."

Foreign Secretary Jaishankar's presence at today's meeting with the Home Minister signaled India's plan to keep up the pressure diplomatically. Junior foreign minister MJ Akbar will raise the Uri attack at a meeting of foreign ministers in New York tomorrow.

Mr Jaishankar rushed back from Vienna; he was scheduled to go straight from there to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj is expected to speak on Monday, September 26.

Ms Swaraj too is expected to strongly raise the Uri attack in her speech and highlight Pakistan's role in terrorist activity in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India.

The Army says the terrorists who attacked the Uri base seemed to belong to the Pakistan-based group Jaish e Mohammad, which had in January attacked an air base in Punjab's Pathankot, killing seven Armymen.