Government source: Modi gave India's military operational freedom to respond however it wants to Kashmir attack

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured his leadership that it has "operational freedom" to respond as it sees fit to an attack that killed 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir, a government source said today.

In a meeting with the chiefs of staff, Modi told the armed forces that they "have the freedom to decide on the objectives, timing, and manner of India's response to the terrorist attack that targeted civilians in Kashmir," the source, who did not want to be named, told AFP.

Modi "reaffirmed the national resolve to deal a decisive blow to terrorism and expressed full confidence in the capacity of the Indian armed forces" to do so, the same source continued.

On April 22, multiple gunmen killed 26 people in the tourist town of Pahalgam, in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir.

Even before anyone claimed responsibility for the attack, New Delhi accused Islamabad of being responsible. It was the deadliest attack on civilians in the Muslim-majority region in more than two decades.

Pakistan immediately denied any involvement and called for a "neutral investigation."

The two countries, both nuclear powers, have been on the brink of war ever since. Their governments have imposed a number of reciprocal diplomatic sanctions and their citizens have been urged to leave their neighbors' territories by today at the latest.

For the past few nights, Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been exchanging small arms fire along the so-called "Line of Control," the de facto border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the Indian military said.

Last week, Modi publicly vowed to hunt down the perpetrators of the attacks and their accomplices "to the ends of the earth."

Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan when they declared independence in 1947. But the two rivals have continued to claim full sovereignty over the region ever since. Since 1989, Indian-administered Kashmir has been the scene of a separatist insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of people.