Mohammad Jamil
Kashmiri freedom fighters continue their attacks on India camps and forces. Last week, they had attacked General Reserve Engineers Force (GREF) Camp in Batal (Akhnoor), which is a subordinate organization of Border Roads Organization. GREF camp is located at 2 km from LOC in Batal village of Khour area (Akhnoor). Indian media stated that the attackers came from across the LOC and killed three employees; however the exact number of attackers is still not confirmed. Indian media did not give wide coverage as was done in the previous incidents, because it knew that Indian military had informed media about the surgical strike in Azad Kashmir, which never took place. Indian Army might be making the groups for launching another fake surgical strike to convince Indians that Indian army had avenged the Uri attack and also put Pakistan on the mat.
Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Asif on Monday warned India of a “befitting response” if it dared to carry out surgical strikes inside his country. He also claimed India does not want to continue the process of negotiation with Pakistan and reduce the tension. “If India conducts a surgical strike such a response would be given that the country would not even dream of even a fake surgical strike”. He was speaking on a motion moved by Senator Sehar Kamran regarding the situation arising out of the alleged Indian violations of the Line of Control and ceasefire on the working boundary, resulting in the loss of precious lives. “A befitting response would be given if India dared to carry out surgical strikes inside Pakistan,” he said,. He claimed that India was making failed attempts to link the Kashmir insurgency with cross border infiltration and terrorism.
India carried out 330 ceasefire violations including 290 on LoC and 40 on the working boundaries till December last, in which 45 Pakistani civilians were killed and 138 injured in the violations. One cannot understand as to why frequency of the violations has been reduced after change of guard in Pakistan army. Anyhow, the violations were effectively responded by the armed forces of the country according to ISPR. Last week, Pakistan’s army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa said his forces were fully geared to respond to any aggression by India. Earlier, India’s newly appointed army chief General Bipin Rawat had said that “India has sent across a message with surgical strike that attacks won’t be tolerated. Indian army would not shy away from a second surgical strike if peace in the region is disrupted. “The Cold Start doctrine exists for conventional military operations,” he said in an interview.
In their analysis, Walter C. Ladwig III, lecturer in international relations at the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London, and Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the reference to ‘Cold Start’ raised vital questions. What did General Rawat mean by the phrase and was he “authorised to speak on the matter by the government?” Many defence analysts presumed the army had abandoned this limited war concept altogether; or narrowly focused on streamlining mobilisation while still maintaining the fundamental Strike Corps organisation and doctrinal concept. “Either General Rawat has dispensed with 15 years of semantic gymnastics and simply referred to these “proactive strategy options” by their more common nomenclature, Cold Start, or, the Indian Army has been quietly reorganising ‘its limited war concept’ along more aggressive, and offensive, lines with little fanfare.”
India is trying to divert attention of the world from its repression and barbaric acts in Indian Held Kashmir, and to convince the world that Pakistan is supporting Kashmiri freedom fighters. In fact, Kashmiri youth started retaliations because innocent Kashmiris were murdered in fake encounters and girls were raped, Kashmiri street agitations broke out. Whenever Kashmiri youths attacked the Indian targets in the occupied territory in revenge, Indians started pillorying Pakistan by alleging that the Pakistan military and intelligence agency pushed in to incite insurgency there. This has indeed been the game plan throughout, both to disparage the popular Kashmiri liberation struggle and to denounce Pakistan so as to project Kashmiri freedom struggle as terrorism, and Pakistan as terrorism sponsoring state. But India has failed on both counts; for one international community understands India’s vile acts, and secondly it failed to break the will of the Kashmiris.
Indian occupied territory is being swept by undiminished freedom sentiment, which the brutal use of the Indian military force over the past three decades or so failed to quell. Another reason for India’s frustration is that it has failed to isolate Pakistan, as Pakistan has come closer to Russia in addition to having strong strategic ties with China. A Russian ground forces contingent had participated in the first-ever joint military exercises which was reflective of growing military ties between the two former Cold War rivals. Iran is not likely to be a part of any plan to contain China, as Iran has more interest in China rather than India or the US. Lately, with Turkey, Iran and Russia coming closer because of convergence of interests on the war against the ISIS at Syrian/Turkish border, the political landscape of the world is changing, and Pakistan is using its options to counter India’s machinations.
