The terrorist attack in Pulwama that killed 40 CRPF jawans was not the work of one man but a group, former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief Vikram Sood said on Sunday.

“The entire episode of Pulwama was not a job done by one man. There would have been a whole team behind him,” the former spy boss told journalists after addressing a seminar on “External Intelligence for National Security” here.

“This kind of an incident does not take place without a security lapse somewhere… they had knowledge about the movement of the (CRPF) vehicles. There must have been a group of people who did it,” Sood said.

Asked about India’s possible response, Sood said: “It is not a boxing match… punch for punch won’t do.” The time and the place would be chosen by the security forces, as the Prime Minister had said, he added.

To another query on India not getting China’s support to proscribe Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar as “global terrorist” at the United Nations Security Council, Sood said: “China is playing to Pakistan’s requests.

He said: “I think China and not Pakistan is the bigger threat. China in control of Pakistan is even worse.

So, we have to prepare for that.”

Stressing the need for a national policy on Kashmir, former Union home secretary K Padmanabhaiah in his address said: “There has to be a national policy on Kashmir… not a BJP policy, not a Congress policy and not a Leftist policy. A national policy where everybody agrees.”