Gurdaspur attackers heard shouting Islamic slogans: Officials

Gurdaspur: Punjab Police personnel said on Monday they heard terrorists shout 'Allah hu Akbar' — Arabic for 'God is great' — as a gunfight between the attackers and security forces in Gurdaspur entered its 10th hour, indicating the assault was a suicide attack.

Heavily armed men stormed a police station in the Punjab district close to the border with Pakistan, killing six people and wounding several others. Armed police exchanged fire with the attackers, who remained holed up in the police station after the assault began at 5.30am.

A source in the Punjab Police said Khalistani militants were not known to carry out such suicide attacks. India fought a deadly Sikh insurgency in Punjab in the 1980s that peaked with the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at the hands of her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. Sikh militant groups were demanding an independent homeland for minority Sikhs at the time, which they called Khalistan.

Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal said the incident had nothing to do with the revival of terrorism in Punjab and that it appeared to be an attack carried out by a terrorist group active outside the state.

"The Khalistanis never indulged in suicide strikes at any target. This is clearly a suicide attack, perpetrated by some known terror groups," former Punjab Police chief Julio F Ribeiro said after the attack on Monday.

News agency Reuters, meanwhile, quoted police sources as saying that the attackers entered India from Pakistan two days ago in the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Jitendra Singh, a junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office, said he did not rule out Pakistan's involvement. "There have also been earlier reports of Pakistan infiltration and cross-border mischief in this area," said Singh, whose constituency in the Jammu region borders Gurdaspur.

Earlier this month, Modi met his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif and agreed top security officers from the two countries would meet to discuss counter-terrorism. Modi also agreed to visit Pakistan next year.