Some Retaliation at Last

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Indian troops crossed the Line of Control (LoC) and demolished at least five terrorist launch pads in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), killing over 35 terrorists in an operation that lasted more than five hours. The action climaxed between 3 a.m. and 4.30 a.m. according to officials in the know of the operations. The Indian commandos are reported to have “exfiltrated” and were back in their home bases—their own launch pads in Indian territory—between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. The launch pads of the Pakistani terrorists are reportedly three to five kilometres across the LoC, and Indian troops went inside the PoK to strike at the camps and demolish them. The troops also used helicopters to reach the target spots after getting pinpoint information about their locations. Additiol troops have been deployed to prevent terrorists from Pakistan entering India. Perhaps the best part of the entire operation is that India officially admitted to having carried it out across the LoC, with the Director General of Military Operations, Lt Gen. Ranbir Singh claiming in a statement that “India conducted surgical strikes last night across the LoC to safeguard our tion.”

What is interesting about the operation is that while Pakistan Prime Minister waz Sharif denounced what he called an “unprovoked and ked aggression” by Indian forces, the Pakistan military has denied that there had been any surgical strikes by India. It insisted that there had been cross-border firing initiated and conducted by India. “The same was strongly and befittingly responded by Pakistani troops,” the Pakistani military sources claimed. Indian officials have claimed that they had enough evidence to assess the damage/attrition caused by the raids. This would be made public depending on the environment that would follow as a consequence of the Indian actions. They also added: “They (the Pakistani troops and the militants) did not know where we had come from and where we were exiting from. We have given them a clear-cut sigl that our objective was the terrorists and their handlers.” The last bit could well be intended to emphasize that the commandos deliberately chose not to attack Pakistani army positions. According to reports, the plans of the SF (Special Forces) were intimately coordited with troops manning the LoC and the local ghatak platoons were incorporated. The special teams used plastic explosives with delayed charges and flamethrowers to blow up and burn the suspected terror camps.

The Indian action will be widely hailed because of the loss of face that the tion had suffered from after the dastardly Pakistani attack on Indian army camps near Uri on September 18 and the relatively long period of India’s silence. The tion was beginning to wonder when all the tall talk about punishing the perpetrators and about taking a jaw for a tooth would materialize in action. What Indian troops did across the LoC on Wednesday morning accounts for a few more teeth if not the entire jaw. Something as brave as capturing Dawood Ibrahim from Karachi or wherever else in Pakistan he may be could be regarded as a taking the entire jaw for a tooth. In any case, the Special Forces have done us proud and most Indians feel somewhat vindicated for the Uri and Pathankot attacks on India. However, since Pakistan is in the business of exporting terrorism even if it cannot export anything else, we must now be prepared for some kind of a war with Pakistan in the coming days or at least a situation that could best described as “no war but no peace”.