India is ready and willing to hit back-Army

Amid rising calls for retribution after an audacious jihadi strike on an Army camp at Uri, PM Narendra Modi authorised the Army to deliver an effective response to the latest terror attack believed to have been engineered by Pakistan.

Sources said the PM, at a meeting with members of the Cabinet Committee on Security, military and intelligence brass and senior bureaucrats, asked for all options to be put on the table for the government to take the final call on the nature of India's response.

The stand of the government, under pressure to live up to its pre-poll promise of a hardline policy towards Pakistan, was articulated by Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, director general of military operations. “We have the desired capacity to respond to such blatant acts of aggression.We reserve the right to respond to any act of the adversary at a time and place of our choosing,“ he said. Later in the evening, Modi met President Pranab Mukherjee to apprise him of the Uri attack and the situation unfolding in its aftermath. The PM had said on Sunday that the Jaish attack would not go “unpunished“. During his meeting with senior Cabinet minis ters, NSA Ajit Doval, Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag, chiefs of intelligence agencies and others, Modi is learnt to have gone through the entire spectrum of steps the government can possibly take to punish Pakistan for masterminding the attack.

Sources said options ham mered out during the two rounds of deliberations home minister Rajnath Singh held with Army officers, intelligence chiefs and senior bureaucrats included surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on camps where terrorists are trained by the Pakistan army and jihadi outfits, and also artillery attacks on such camps.

The PM, Rajnath Singh, finance minister Arun Jaitley and defence minister Manohar Parrikar and others felt the response should be effective enough to reassure people at home as well as to make it clear to Pakistan that it cannot get away with murder anymore, said an official source, indicating that the “effective response won't be too long in coming“.

A group of officers is likely to examine the pros and cons of each possible course of action before the PM and members of the CCS decide on how exactly to hit back at Pakistan.

The attendees felt the response, while being tough, could not be a wild lunge.Thus, while downgrading of diplomatic ties with Pakistan was not ruled out, a view was that recalling the Indian high commissioner might not be desirable at this stage.

The fallout of the escalation for an economy rated among the best-performing globally , and the risk of Pakistan using a military response from Delhi to overcome its diplomatic isolation by painting India as the aggressor, will be factored in while deciding the “payback“.

These considerations, how ever, may not deter the government from seeking to punish the authors of what Modi called a “despicable“ attack.Besides opponents mocking its “tough-on-terror“ plank, the government is also having to deal with mounting pressure from within not to let the latest terror atrocity go unpunished.

Pakistan's hand in the attack at Uri became clearer with the DGMO stating that recoveries from the four dead terrorists included four AKs and under-barrel grenade launchers (with 39 grenades), five hand grenades, two radio sets, two GPS sets, two map sheets, two matrix sheets, a mobile phone and several food and medicine packets with Pakistani markings.

The mood in government and BJP remained unyielding with law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad saying, “Our relationship with Pakistan will not be the same again. Our patience is running out. There is a limit to patience. The government will consider strategic and diplomatic options and take a decision.“

The government made it evident that it may not be deterred by considerations such as the impact of any action across the LoC and pointed out that 17 infiltration bids, a marked increase compared to the past three-four years, were foiled by the Indian Army along the LoC.

Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service continues

A day after 18 army men were killed and more than two dozen troopers were injured in a deadly attack on an army base camp in border town Uri, 'Karvan-e-Aman', a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), operated as usual on Monday. Escorted by heavy convoy of security forces, the bus was the only civilian vehicle which was allowed to pass through Uri town after Sunday's attack. Srinagar's regional passport officer Firdous Iqbal said, “Ten Indians from PoK returned from Muzaffarabad to Srinagar, while three Indians and five Pakistani moved from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad.“ The weekly bus service was started in 2005.

(TOI)