SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI: For all the shrill rhetoric immediately following Sunday’s attack on an Indian army camp in Held Kashmir, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan, the threat of a sudden escalation in hostilities between the nuclear-armed rivals has receded for now.
Two days after 18 Indian soldiers were killed, in the biggest blow to security forces in the disputed Himalayan region for 14 years, some officials called for a measured response and plotted a diplomatic offensive to increase pressure on Pakistan.
Military action was limited to skirmishes near the Line of Control (LoC) separating the countries in Kashmir, with Indian troops killing eight people they said were trying to cross the de facto border and separately fighting four or five suspected militants.
India’s Federal Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said there was a deep sense of outrage about the attack in the border town of Uri, and that patience with Pakistan was wearing thin. But he added, “Whatever decisions the government takes in this regard will be done with full diplomatic and strategic maturity.” Prasad also warned against loose talk of conducting cross-border strikes.
Pakistan has dismissed Indian allegations of involvement in the Uri attack, saying the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had apportioned blame even before the investigation was complete.
Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday tweeted that “Pakistan is a terrorist state.” The attack presents Modi with the most serious crisis involving Pakistan since his election in 2014, with Hindu nationalists who helped him sweep to power expecting a more robust reaction than that of the last government.
Yet the response so far resembles the path of “strategic restraint” that previous leaders had adopted, even at times of major tensions, including the 2008 assault on Mumbai in which 166 people were killed.
Senior security officials on the ground in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK), facing a hardening of separatist attitudes in response to the rise of Modi, say they can manage the impulsiveness of his hardcore Hindu nationalist allies.
“This country has a very robust bureaucratic set-up to take care of their inadequacies,” a senior army officer said on the condition of anonymity.
Any military action against Pakistan would be carefully weighed on its merits and against less risky alternatives, such as diplomatic pressure, economic measures or covert action. “It’s a tactical decision,” the officer said.
On Tuesday, a team from India’s National Investigative Agency gathered more evidence from Uri, including blood samples, DNA and the GPS devices that the four attackers carried.
Indian government officials are hoping they can establish the route they believe the gunmen took to allegedly cross the LoC from the Pakistani side, because it would help mount a diplomatic offensive against Islamabad for ‘harbouring militants’.