NEW DELHI: India’s army said on Tuesday that Pakistani troops had helped a group of 30 to 40 insurgents stage the biggest incursion in Kashmir in years, linking it to a plan to push fighters into the region as foreign forces withdraw from neighboring Afghanistan.

Army chief Gen. Bikram Singh’s remarks were the first direct allegation against Pakistan since the heavily-armed fighters crossed the Line of Control in Kashmir.

The men were holed up in an abandoned village in the Keran sector for nearly a fortnight, an Indian army source earlier told Reuters. That prompted comparisons with the Kargil conflict.

“With the eyeball-to-eyeball deployment along the Line of Control, it is well-nigh impossible for the terrorists to do any activity without the knowledge of the Pakistani army,” Singh told the Times Now television.

Indian intelligence officials have warned that militant groups that have been fighting in Afghanistan for several years have been turning their sights to Kashmir as foreign forces leave to reinvigorate the nearly 24-year insurgency there.

Pakistan denies it is helping militants cross the largely fenced border with India in Kashmir and has urged India to hold talks to tackle the decades-old dispute over the region.

“A large group of terrorists is infiltrating and you mean to say that this is happening without the complicity of Pakistan Army? This is ridiculous,” Lt. Gen. Sanjiv Chachra, northern army commander told reporters in Srinagar.