Pakistan 'completely rejects' Indian claim of cross-border strikes

(REUTERS) Pakistan on Friday "completely rejected" India's claim to have sent troops across its disputed border in Kashmir to kill suspected militants, as India evacuated villages near the frontier amid concerns about a military escalation.

In a rare public announcement of such a raid, India said it had carried out "surgical strikes" on Thursday, sending special forces to kill men preparing to sneak into its territory and attack major cities.

Indian officials said troops had killed militants numbering in the double digits and that its soldiers had returned safely to base before dawn, but declined to provide more evidence of the operation.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif maintained that India fired unprovoked from its side of the heavily militarized frontier in the disputed region of Kashmir, the flashpoint for two of three wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors, and killed two soldiers.

"The Cabinet joined the Prime Minister in completely rejecting the Indian claims of carrying out 'surgical strikes'," Sharif's office said in a statement issued after a cabinet meeting on Friday.

It added that the country was ready "to counter any aggressive Indian designs," but gave no further details.

Pakistan also captured an Indian soldier on Thursday on its side of the border, but India said this was unrelated to the raid as the man had inadvertently strayed across the frontier.

Domestic pressure had been building on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retaliate after 19 soldiers were killed in a Sept. 18 attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir that India blames on infiltrators who crossed from Pakistani territory.

A senior leader of Modi's ruling party declared himself satisfied with India's "multi-pronged" response to the attack on the army base.

"For Pakistan, terrorism has come as a cheaper option all these years. Time to make it costly for it," Ram Madhav, national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, wrote in a column for the Indian Express newspaper.