Time to think of serious punitive measures for Pak sponsored proxy war

Brig Arun Bajpai

After acquiring nuclear shield in 1988, kind courtesy China, Pakistan read Pakistani Army has imposed its proxy war on India in the state of J&K with an aim of imposing thousand cuts on India and ultimately wresting Kashmir from India. In the last 29 years of this proxy war India has lost more than 5000 soldier's martyred and 40000 plus Indian citizens killed while Pakistan has lost more than 20000 Jehadis killed. However these Jehadis do not mean anything to Pakistani Army, being just cannon fodder to them. If India wants to win this war then it will have to do some out of box thinking and will have to bloody Pakistani Army.

…if Pakistan wants to survive as a country and progress in world polity it will have to prune its expenses on military…

Pakistani Army has ruled Pakistan for almost half of the 70 years of its existence and balance of time including now it continues to rule Pakistan from behind the scenes. With more than 90 billion dollars in debt the civilian elected government of Pakistan now fully realises that if Pakistan wants to survive as a country and progress in world polity it will have to prune its expenses on military, a fact which is anathema to Pakistani Army and its Generals living in their self concocted dream of parity with India, despite losing all four wars they fought with India.

Pruning of military expenses will only be possible for Pakistan if it develops good relations with India because it has no other enemy. This Pakistani Army will never allow, since apart from getting huge percentage cuts in every foreign arms purchase deals Pakistani Generals get, they also have huge bungalows, farm houses and what have you just by keeping India as enemy. Pakistani Army has convinced Pakistan polity that but for them India would have gobbled up Pakistan. As per world renowned PEW Research Agency more than 70% Pakistani believe their Army.

Another reason why Pakistani Army will not allow Pakistani democratically elected civil government to develop good relations with India is contained in the famous book of Pakistani Military writer Ayesha Siddiqa in her book written on Pakistani Army titled Military Incorporation. In this book she says that Pakistani Army in Pakistan is doing 20 billion dollars worth of business. Form making of cement to bakery they are running all sorts of business in Pakistan and nobody dares question them. Surely Pakistani Army and its intelligence agency ISI are not going to lose all these pelf and perks as also power to have good relations with India?

What should be worrying us is that Pakistani Army is using their sponsored jehadis against Our Army who have no value to Pakistani Army. For them these Jehadis are cannon fodder.

In last 70 years of Indian independence, all the democratically elected Governments in India have tried their best to convince Pakistan that India has no evil designs in Pakistan and that India wants to have good relations with Pakistan. However all these efforts have failed thanks to Pakistani Army and ISI. When the current Modi Government took over power, three years back, it also tried to follow the same old policy of having good relations with Pakistan. On 25 December 2015 Indian Prime Minister Mr. Modi went on an unscheduled visit to Pakistan to wish Happy Birthday to Pakistani Prime Minister Navaz Sharif.

Needless to say this was unacceptable to Pakistani Army so they organised a jehadi attack from their sponsored jehadi organisation Jaish Mohammad on Pathankot Airbase, on 02 January 2016. This was followed by number of cross border jehadi attacks by the Pakistani Army sponsored jehadi organisations .In March 2016 Pakistani Army kidnapped Ex Naval Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav from Iran with the help of Taliban and showed him as being caught in Baluchistan to embarrass India. Pakistani Army then tried him by military court in hush hush manner and has sentenced him to death. Needless to say the relations between the two countries have nosedived. In September month last year Pakistani Army sponsored jehadis attacked Uri army camp in J&K State causing lot of damage to life and limb. Indian Army replied with a surgical strike in Pakistan.

Thanks to Pakistani Army, this spiralling of bad relations between India and Pakistan further got boost when on 01 May this year Pakistani Army BAT team beheaded two soldiers of Indian Army. On 23 May, Indian Army has released a video which shows how Pakistani Army posts have been destroyed and between 20-30 Pakistani soldiers killed on 09 of May by using Rocket launchers, 105 mm RCL guns, Anti tank guided missiles, 105 mm Field guns and 130 mm medium guns firing in direct mode, in Naushera Sector of LOC in Kashmir Valley. Indian Media is calling it revenge of the beheading of the two Indian soldiers by the Pakistani Army BAT team on 01 May. Truth is that this is no revenge. All these weapons are readily available to the Army and they can use them daily if they want to. Why are these weapons not used immediately in all those areas where Pakistani Army's posts help Jehadis to cross into Indian Territory by providing them supporting fire? I am sure Indian Army must be doing it on regular basis without announcing.

It is time we identify ways and means to hit the soldiers of Pakistani Army, every time there is an infiltration of jehadis in a particular sector of LOC.

Answer is not these fire fights. Yes these are ok and must be done randomly at regular basis to keep the Pakistani Army on tentor hooks. What should be worrying us is that Pakistani Army is using their sponsored jehadis against Our Army who have no value to Pakistani Army. For them these Jehadis are cannon fodder. When these jehadis are killed by our soldiers Pakistan as a country in general and Army in particular are losing nothing. They do not even have to pay pension or any other benefits to this cannon fodder of theirs. On the other hand our trained soldiers are getting martyred which is just not acceptable. However in the long run it is we who are losers because Pakistani Army across the LOC are not affected and are enjoying this charade. It is time we identify ways and means to hit the soldiers of Pakistani Army, every time there is an infiltration of jehadis in a particular sector of LOC.

Every time there is an infiltration in any sector of LOC of the jehadis we should contain it at that sector, at the same time in any other sector of the 778 km long LOC we should get across and hit Pakistani Army by surgical strikes. Aim should be to launch surprise raids based on due intelligence up to a distance of one nights marching time and back. The task allotted should be to kill and destroy as much as possible in the limited time available. Yes there will be own casualties also, some failures also, but that have to be accepted. For these raids no special forces are required. All infantry battalions of Indian Army are trained for it.

Special Forces should be used for surgical strikes deep in Pakistan to destroy their jehadi training camps and kill all the occupants there. For this detailed planning and application is the need of the hour. Where required helicopter borne surgical strike force should be used with attack helicopters giving due support. We must also put necessary satellites in orbit as also drones to obtain minute to minute intelligence of the enemy.

Apart from engaging Pakistani Army militarily we must isolate Pakistan in world forum diplomatically.

It needs to be understood that Pakistani Army is a political Army. They will never fight man to man with us. All the four wars that they have lost against us is case in point. In their own country in fighting insurgency against their own people unlike Indian Army they use fighter aircrafts, heavy guns and tanks killing hundreds in addition to collateral damage. Only when we start hitting them hard and killing them they will stop using jehadis as their cover because they will be sure that somewhere along LOC we will raid them and kill them.

Apart from engaging Pakistani Army militarily we must isolate Pakistan in world forum diplomatically. Once Pakistani Army will start getting bloodied they will come down to mother earth in no time. Case in point is the recent bombardment of Pakistani border by Iran a non nuclear country and open threat to Pakistan by Iranian Military Chief that they will carry out surgical strikes in Pakistan against jehadis who are killing Iranian Border Guards.