Kashmir attack: India 'launches strikes against militants'
India's army says it has carried out
"surgical strikes" against suspected militants along the de-facto
border with Pakistan in Kashmir.
The operation was aimed at preventing attacks being planned by Pakistan-based militants, a senior army official said.
He said "significant casualties
have been caused to the terrorists and those who are trying to support
them".
Pakistan denies India carried out any
strikes and says two of its soldiers were killed in cross-border shelling.
"The notion of surgical strike
linked to alleged terrorists' bases is an illusion being deliberately generated
by India to create false effects," the Pakistani military said in a
statement.
Pakistan said its soldiers died in
"unprovoked" firing along the Line of Control dividing the disputed
region.
A territorial dispute between the two
countries over Muslim-majority Kashmir has been running for decades, but
tensions flared earlier this month after a militant attack on an Indian army
base in Kashmir left 18 soldiers dead.
India blamed the attack on Pakistan,
which denied the claim.
What do we know about the 'strikes'?
India's military gave few details of
the operation it says it carried out overnight.
At a joint press briefing by the army
and the foreign ministry, officials said the "motive of the operation was
to hit out at terrorists who were planning to infiltrate into our
territory".
India's Director General of Military
Operations, Lt Gen Ranbir Sin
gh, also blamed Pakistan for
"being unable to control terror activities in territories under its
control".
"Based on receiving specific and
credible inputs that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch
pads along the Line of Control to carry out infiltration and conduct terrorist
strikes inside Jammu and Kashmir and in various metros in other states, the
Indian army conducted surgical strikes at several of these launch pads to
pre-empt infiltration by terrorists," a statement said.
It said the "surgical
strikes" had caused "significant damage to terrorists".
But the army did not say whether
troops had entered Pakistan-administered Kashmir or had fired across the
border.
However, the Press Trust of India
quoted sources saying the operation took place between midnight and 04:30 local
time on Thursday, that it was a combination of helicopter and ground forces,
and seven militant "launch pads" had been targeted.
Some unconfirmed Indian media reports
said more than 30 militants had been killed in the operation.
Pakistani army officials said the
fighting started in the early hours of Thursday morning and continued for about
six hours
Why now?
Narendra Modi's BJP government swept
to power promising a tough line on Pakistan, so it has been been under
tremendous pressure to retaliate after the 18 September attack on the army base
in Uri in Indian-administered Kashmir. The raid was the deadliest of its kind
for years.
"I assure the nation that those
behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Mr Modi declared
just hours after the base was attacked.
There was also much talk of whether
India should continue with its doctrine of "strategic restraint"
against Pakistan.
A "strike" now is seen by
many observers as aimed at placating an angry domestic constituency and sending
out the message that Mr Modi is a strong leader.
What does Pakistan say?
The country's prime minister, Nawaz
Sharif, criticised the "unprovoked and naked aggression of Indian
forces" and said his military was capable of thwarting "any evil
design to undermine the sovereignty of Pakistan".
Islamabad says India's stance is a
"blatant attempt" to deflect attention from human rights abuses in
the region.
More than 80 people, nearly all
anti-government protesters, have died in more than two months of violence
against Indian rule.
What about India? By Soutik Biswas
Many say jingoism and war-mongering
are the twin obsessions of a growing and increasingly prosperous middle class
in India, and the reaction to the latest attack is quite predictable.
#ModiPunishesPak was trending top of
Twitter in India, hours after the media first reported "the strikes".
The other top trending hashtags included #SurgicalStrike and #Indian Army. A
Narendra Modi fan club account tweeted a clip from a Tom and Jerry cartoon film
to show India spanking Pakistan.
Government supporters gushed that this
was a "proud moment for India", with one Bollywood actor thanking the
army for doing what India "should have done 30 years ago".
A clutch of news channels were waxing
delirious on how India had taught Pakistan a lesson and speculated endlessly
about the details of the operation.
Things were much more serious between
the two nuclear-armed rivals, they say, after the 2001 attack by Pakistan-based
militants on the Indian parliament but there was no social media then, and the
calls to escalate the conflict were more muted.
Why is Kashmir so dangerous?
Both India and Pakistan claim
Muslim-majority Kashmir in its entirety but control only parts of it.
The territorial dispute between the
two countries has been running for over six decades, and two out of the three
wars fought between the nuclear-armed rivals have been over Kashmir.
As with every stand-off in Kashmir,
the fear of many is that this could eventually escalate into a major clash
between two nuclear-armed states.
But most analysts still believe that
is unlikely to happen and that sporadic clashes and diplomatic sabre-rattling
are likely to continue.
Courtesy: BBC