India warns Kashmir muslims to give up arms or get killed

'SENSE OF URGENCY'

Pakistan has condemned the bombing and on Tuesday it appealed to the United Nations to intervene, in light of the deteriorating security situation.

"Attributing it to Pakistan even before investigations is absurd," Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a letter to the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres seeking U.N. involvement to lower tension.

"It is with a sense of urgency that I draw your attention to the deteriorating security situation in our region resulting from the threat of use of force against Pakistan by India," he said.

The United States had told India it supported its right to defend itself against cross-border attacks, India said.

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.

Dhillon said one of the militants killed on Monday was from Indian Kashmir while the other two were from Pakistan.

"It was being controlled from across by ISI and Pakistan and JeM commanders," Dhillon said of the bomb attack.

Dhillon did not provide any proof for his accusation and said he could not be more specific about the investigation into the blast and the suspected role of the Pakistan military intelligence agency, except to note its close links with the JeM.

Jammu and Kashmir, a former princely state on the border between India and Pakistan, has been in dispute since the partition of India in 1947. Control is split between the two countries but each claims the region in full.

The neighbours have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over Kashmir. They have fought countless skirmishes along their de facto border, which the United Nations monitors, in the Himalayan region.

The bomb attack has sparked outrage in India with calls for revenge circulating on social media, and rising animosity towards Kashmiri Muslims in other parts of the Hindu-majority country, to the alarm of rights groups.

The government has warned against rising communal tension.