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India, Pakistan war of words after Army’s border operations show bilateral ties will only worsen

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Angshukanta Chakraborty
Angshukanta ChakrabortyMay 23, 2017 | 22:05

India, Pakistan war of words after Army’s border operations show bilateral ties will only worsen

“Surgical strikes” have become a buzzword that has won crucial elections in India since September 2016. On September 29 last year, commandos of the Indian Army crossed the Line of Control and destroyed terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, much to national chest-beating.

Avenging the Uri terror attack of September 18, just two weeks back, the Indian surgical strikes became a matter of lore, with the tale told and retold from different perspectives, from the top sources within the Indian Army themselves. Today, once again, Indian Army has released a 20-second video of its operations in Nowshera, taking out terror camps in what looks like a sequenced cluster-bombing of enemy targets.

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The video footage shows India’s counter-terrorism operation destroying a Pakistani post across the Line of Control in the Naushera sector of J&K. The video it is being said is of the counter-terror op that was conducted on May 9. Reports that similar operations were carried out last weekend, on May 20 and 21, have also surfaced.

According to Army's spokespersons, the “punitive assaults” are pre-emptive strikes and form part of the new, reinvigorated counter-terror strategy, in which no Pakistan-sponsored terrorism would be tolerated by an increasingly militaristic Indian establishment.

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[Photo: IndiaToday]

Major General Ashok Narula, the director general of public information of the Indian Army, said, “The Pakistan Army has been providing support to armed infiltrators. In the recent actions, we have caused damage to Pakistan army posts”. The hashtag #IndiaRevengeStrike has been trending on Twitter, and the new strategy of “punitive/preemptive” counter-terror op is being lauded by many close to the establishment.

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This has also been seen as Indian authorities not hesitating to make the first strike and catch Pakistan off guard by changing its strategy and playing offensive instead of defensive to prevent infiltration. With the recent #HurriyatTruthTapes expose, the governments both at the Centre and in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, have decided to come across as firm against Pakistan-driven agitation, unrest and indeed full-fledged terror operations.

However, the usual denials from Pakistani civil and military establishment, as well as by its spokespersons and various panelists representing Islamabad, too, have surfaced. While the ISI’s social media wing has refused to acknowledge the ops with a tweet, the Pakistan Army has dismissed India’s assertion that Pakistani Army posts in Naushera were destroyed. Major General Asif Ghafoor, spokesperson for the Pakistan Army, said the reports were false, and India was raking up a fake, manufactured controversy.

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Panelists on Indian television too have denied the claims, saying that terrorists have no official backing from Pakistan military.

It is extremely saddening that the old game of political one-upmanship between India and Pakistan is carrying on as usual, but now the armed incursions and excursions have risen to seriously unsustainable heights. Everyday almost reports of armed combatants who have crossed over from the other side rile up the subcontinental social media, vitiating the bilateral ties all the more.

Even in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, India-Pakistan enmity has intensified to a degree wherein the recent ICJ snub is being read as an affront to its nationalist dignity in Pakistan. The killing of the young Indian Army officer Ummer Fayaz by militants with ties to Pakistan-backed terror outfits also has managed to further embitter an already toxic mutual relationship.

In this context, this “Surgical Strike 2.0” by Indian Army across the LoC and declaring it with great fanfare is something that must be pondered over and debated by defence and national security experts. As reports have adequately demonstrated, India’s new “muscular” Kashmir and Pakistan policy has not yielded any real and truly positive results for the ordinary citizen trapped in the crosshairs of Army versus militant face-off.

Moreover, the September 29 surgical strike, while a superlatively successful military operation in itself, has failed to deter militant incursions across the LoC, which have actually increased since then. Additionally, the real dividend of the surgical strikes were reaped by the “nationalist” BJP government in the Centre, which dropped the word soldier to quell any criticism related to governance and the price of India’s newfound military adventurism paid by ordinary Kashmiris.

Once again, we are faced with the same question. Are the surgical strikes the new normal? Are we going to see open flaunting of war crimes as happened in the case of Major Nitin Gogoi who used a Kashmiri youth as a human shield, someone who wasn’t a stone-pelter but a believer in Indian democracy? Is the price for India’s militaristic zeitgeist to be paid by its own citizens trapped in the world’s most militarised zone?

Last updated: May 24, 2017 | 12:47
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