AKIPRESS.COM - India stepped up patrols along its de facto border with Pakistan on Monday after gunmen killed 17 soldiers at a nearby army base, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration weighed its response to an attack India blames on its neighbor, says Reuters.

The assault, in which four commando-style gunmen burst into the brigade headquarters in Uri at 5.30 am on Sunday, was among the deadliest in Kashmir and has sharply ratcheted up tension between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Army officials said three critically wounded had been flown to a hospital in New Delhi. Most of dead and wounded suffered severe burns after their tents and temporary shelters caught fire from incendiary ammunition while they were sleeping.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday called Pakistan "a terrorist state" and army Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said troops were "ready to give a befitting response", without elaborating.

Pakistan denies any role and accused India of apportioning blame before it had properly investigated.

Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan since 1947, is at the heart the neighbors' seven decades of mutual distrust. Two of their three wars since independence from Britain have been fought over the region.

India's options to hit back at Pakistan appeared limited, as they carry the risk of escalation. India held back from military retaliation when a Pakistan-based group killed 166 people in a 2008 rampage through Mumbai for fear of igniting a broader conflict and opted instead for a diplomatic offensive to isolate Islamabad.

An attack on another Indian base near the border in January also drew a measured response, but the casualty toll was lower than in Sunday's raid.

The concern is that Modi's government has several times signaled a lower threshold for retaliating against attacks from Pakistan than the previous Congress government, which adopted a policy of "strategic restraint".

Among the options that India could consider are artillery strikes on Pakistani army positions for helping militants cross over into its part of Kashmir, military experts say. But that would imperil a 2003 ceasefire along the frontier, although it has frayed in recent years.

A second option on the table would be sending special forces inside Pakistan to attack guerrilla training camps, but that was a high-risk gamble that could easily go wrong, they said.

Modi held talks with leaders of his Bharatiya Janata Party at a cabinet meeting on how to respond.

"Our first priority is to fortify every defense base and it is shocking that one of our strategic locations was hit," a senior aide told Reuters. "It has exposed the flaws and the weakness of our security infrastructure and an immediate overhaul is the first job on hand."