The powder keg that is the Kashmir Valley has exploded once again with the year’s biggest strike by terrorists on an Army camp in Uri, in J&K’s Baramulla district. If it is firmly established that this was yet another cross-border attack exported by Pakistan, it is bound to lead to a bigger diplomatic blow-up with a neighbour, whose support of terror as state policy is too well-documented to lend merit to its denials. This strike was bigger than the January siege of the Pathankot airbase in which seven military personnel were killed. With 17 soldiers killed in Uri and at least another 20 injured, this was in fact the biggest casualty the Army has suffered in many years. Amid an alert across the country, India needs a major rethink not only on its preparedness to tackle terror by infiltration across the border or Line of Control — there is reason to believe the breach on the LoC was through the Salamabad Nullah from PoK — but also on its policy priorities regarding Pakistan.
This attack on soldiers sleeping between shifts of active vigil in temporary shelters at the camp is suggestive of a well-planned fidayeen attack by terrorists who obviously had intelligence guiding their operation. The Bihar and Dogra Regiment soldiers’ temporary sleeping tents catching fire made the toll worse; but it’s also suggestive of what conditions brave Armymen are placed in. By identifying the weapons and clothing of the Uri attackers, it should be possible to clearly establish the Pakistani hand in yet another strike on Kashmir. This will lend weight to what India has been saying at all major global forums recently about Pakistan’s role in fuelling the insurgency in Kashmir. It is immaterial whether that will change anything in that country, that grandstands its fate as a victim of terror, losing 9,065 lives in 2015.
The strike, which caught our soldiers off guard, is to be seen as retaliation through increased terror operations in the wake of India’s Balochistan policy thrust, by which moral and political support is to be given to the rebels, including the Balochis living in exile. The coming UN General Assembly session is bound to get quite vocal with the latest instance of what is certainly an attack inspired by Pakistan, rather than the “lone wolf” attacks that crop up in many parts of the world. India’s latest billion-dollar move to bring Afghanistan even closer in diplomatic terms is part of an overall strategy to put the heat on Pakistan. What the Indian Army has lost in so many soldiers dead and injured is a human tragedy we should not lose sight of as we reassess our responses to the naked threat of terror.
