NEW DELHI: India
will use "all instruments at its command" to respond to Pakistan over
its alleged role in a deadly bombing in Kashmir, a government minister said on
Friday, hours after Islamabad warned it would respond with "full
force" if attacked. Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors have
escalated since a suicide car bomb in the disputed region of Kashmir killed 40
Indian security personnel. Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed
claimed responsibility for the attack.

Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, who faces a general election by May, has said he has
given a free hand to security forces to avenge the killings in Kashmir.
"India will exercise all instruments at its command, whether it is
diplomatic or otherwise," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in New Delhi.
"India has all options. You need not exhaust all options on day one. This
is not a one-week battle. It's to be undertaken in various forms."

Referring to
Islamabad's alleged support for Islamist militant groups, he added, "I
think Pakistan is riding a tiger on this issue, and a tiger never spares its
own rider." Pakistan said on Friday it had seized Jaish's headquarters in
a southern district of Punjab province bordering India. Jaish, a jihadist group
that seeks the independence of all of Kashmir from India, has offices and
infrastructure in Pakistan where its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, is based.

Authorities had
taken over Jaish's headquarters in Bahawalpur and appointed an administrator to
look after its affairs, a government statement said. It said the headquarters
and an attached seminary has 600 students and 70 teachers. India's top military
commander in Kashmir has alleged that Pakistan's main Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) spy agency was involved in the attack. "We have no
intention to initiate war, but we will respond with full force to (a) full
spectrum threat that would surprise you," Pakistani army spokesman Major
General Asif Ghafoor told reporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
"Don't mess with Pakistan."

Offer of dialogue

Pakistani Prime
Minister Imran Khan urged India on Wednesday to share any actionable evidence
about the bombing, offering full cooperation in investigating it. He also
offered talks with India on all issues, including terrorism, which India has
always sought as a prerequisite to any dialogue between the south Asian
arch-rivals. India and Pakistan have fought two wars since independence in 1947
over divided Kashmir, all of whose territory is claimed by both countries.

"Kashmir is
a regional issue," Ghafoor said. "Let us talk about it. Let us
resolve it." On Friday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)
said it has written to the game's governing body urging the cricket community
to sever ties with any nation from which "terrorism emanates". The
neighbors, who have not hosted a cricket series between them since 2013 due to
political tensions, are set to clash in one of the most anticipated matches of
the May 30-July 14 World Cup in England and Wales.

India accuses
Pakistani Islamist militant groups of infiltrating its part of mountainous
Kashmir to fuel an insurgency and help local separatist movements. The United
States and India allege that the Pakistani army nurtures the militants to use
them as foreign policy tools to expand Islamabad's sway in India and
Afghanistan. The army denies this.

One such group is
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which India blamed for a wave of attacks in Mumbai in
2008 which killed 166 people, saying its founder, Hafiz Saeed, was the
mastermind. The United States has offered a $10 million reward for information
leading to his conviction over the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan has put him under
house arrest several times and banned his groups, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and
Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF). But Saeed remains free, able to roam around
Pakistan, make public speeches and deliver sermons. - Reuters