OCCUPIED SRINAGAR: Police in Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) blamed Pakistan on Wednesday for a spurt in attacks that killed 12 people and injured dozens over the last three days, just weeks after a large turnout for general elections.

“Our hostile neighbour wants to damage our peaceful environment,” Anand Jain, police chief of Jammu, told reporters in a reference to Pakistan.

A spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. It has denied such claims in the past, saying it has given only political and diplomatic support to the insurgency. “Unless we talk to our neighbours we will not be able to solve the problem,” Farooq Abdullah, a former chief minister of the region, told news agency ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake.