Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday condemned the terror attack that took place in France in the morning, where a man wielding a knife killed three people (one of whom was beheaded) at a church in the city of Nice.
"I strongly condemn the recent terrorist attacks in France, including today's heinous attack in Nice inside a church. Our deepest and heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and the people of France. India stands with France in the fight against terrorism," Modi tweeted in the evening.
The attack left three dead and several injured. One woman was found beheaded at the scene.
The assailant was wounded by police and hospitalized after the killings at the Notre Dame Church, less than a kilometer from the site in 2016 where another attacker plowed a truck into a Bastille Day crowd, killing dozens.
Following the attack in Nice, Macron said France would not yield on its values, and that he would double the number of soldiers deployed from 3,000 to 7,000 to protect against terror attacks, putting France on its highest level of alert.
This was the third attack in two months in France. It comes amid outrage in the Muslim world over a perceived anti-Islam bias in France, following President's Emmanuel Macron's comments that the religion was facing a "crisis" and that France would need to strengthen its secular values. Religious tensions have been high since the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, itself the victim of a terror attack in 2015, republished its controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in September.
Macron's comments sparked a diplomatic spat with Turkey, whose President has publicly called for Macron's mental health to be checked.
Thursday also saw another incident related to the growing outrage. In Saudi Arabia, a Saudi man was detained after stabbing and slightly wounding a security guard at the French Consulate in the coastal city of Jeddah.
Thursday's attacker was believed to be acting alone and police are not searching for other assailants, said two police officials, who were not authorized to be publicly named.
France's anti-terrorism prosecutor's office opened an investigation into the killings, which marked the third attack since the opening in September of a terrorism trial in the January 2015 killings at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket.
"He cried 'Allah Akbar!' over and over, even after he was injured," said Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi, who told BFM television that three people had died, two inside the church and a third who fled but was mortally wounded. "The meaning of his gesture left no doubt."
In Nice, images on French media showed the neighborhood locked down and surrounded by police and emergency vehicles. Sounds of explosions could be heard as sappers exploded suspicious objects.
The lower house of parliament suspended a debate on France's new virus restrictions and held a moment of silence Thursday for the victims. The prime minister rushed from the hall to a crisis center overseeing the aftermath of the Nice attack.
President Macron headed to Nice later in the day.
Less than two weeks ago, an assailant decapitated a French middle school teacher who showed caricatures of the Prophet for a class on free speech. Those caricatures were published by Charlie Hebdo and cited by the men who gunned down the newspaper's editorial meeting in 2015.
In September, a man who had sought asylum in France attacked bystanders outside Charlie Hebdo's former offices with a butcher knife.
With inputs from PTI
