Once bitten, twice shy. Rahul Gandhi, deciding to cut his losses, this time did not repeat the faux pas he made doubting the surgical strike. He promptly congratulated the Indian Air Force pilots for the air strikes early on Tuesday morning. The nation should be grateful to him for little mercies. National unity in fight against the fountainhead of terror should not be so undermined.
The biggest terror-launching camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed was turned flat when twelve Mirage-2000 jets pounded it with 1,000-kg explosives in Balakot camp, merely 50 kilometers from Abbottabad, the latter the cantonment made famous after the Americans leveled the hideaway of Osama bin Laden in a pre-dawn attack. The attack was duly acknowledged by Pakistan.
A Pak army spokesman tweeted that the Indian aircraft had dropped bombs in Balakot, but, expectedly, claimed nobody was hurt because the bombs fell on an empty ground. Of course, they were not likely to concede that the JeM camp was destroyed since that would have been an admission that such it was still running in the Pak-controlled Kashmir. The UN has banned JeM as a terrorist outfit.
Regardless of the ban, Pak Army continues to patronise it as its extension. Keeping it under its wings and yet outside the formal organisational structure, it allows Pakistan the fig-leaf of deniability. It was not in doubt that India would respond in a calibrated manner to the February 14 Pulwama attack in which a suicide bomber had killed over 49 CRPF men. As Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale told reporters hours after the strikes, the Balakot camp of JeM was controlled by its chief Masood Azhar’s brother-in-law Maulana Yousuf Azhar and it was planning further strikes against India.
Following credible intelligence, a preemptive strike became absolutely necessary, Gokhale said. Hours later, addressing a public rally in Churu, Rajasthan, Modi said a ‘non-military, preemptive air strikes’ across the LOC had targeted the JeM camp. Modi reassured the people that ‘India is in safe hands’ and that he would not let down the country. “It is my promise to Mother India.
I will protect your honour”, he committed before a lustily cheering crowd. Though not official, informed sources claimed some 300 terrorists perished in the 3.3 am strike. India briefed the envoys of major countries about the reason for the strike. It was not aggression, but self-defence. Meanwhile, a shaken Pak Government hurried to lighten the blow. To hoodwink its own people, it claimed the Indian jets dropped bombs on an empty ground and hurried home as Pak jets scrambled to offer response.
Sources claimed that the Pak jets withdrew on seeing the large number of IAF fighters, realising it would be a sure death if they engaged them in combat. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, all bombast after Pulwana, was hard put to find appropriate words. While admitting the attack, he now put the onus on a fitting response on Imran Khan. It specially hurt the Pak PM since the attack took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, his home province.
As if willing Khan to respond in kind, Omar Abdullah, the parasitic leader of J and K, tweeted: “The problem now becomes PM Khan’s commitment to his country… what shape will response take? Where will response be? Will India have to react to Pakistan’s response?,” wondered the third generation heir to the Abdullah dynasty which has fattened itself talking pro-India while in power and anti-India while out of it. Real disgrace, no doubt.
While Omar awaits expectantly for a Pak attack, India cannot lower its guard. Not only do the security forces have to be prepared for an external attack, they have to be fully on guard against internal sabotage by members of the huge fifth column amidst us. It is a tough task for any army to fight simultaneously on two fronts, external and domestic. Pakistan does not have to suffer such a handicap.
Meanwhile, the likes of Mamata Banerjee should feel ashamed suggesting that Pulwama was a handiwork of Modi perpetrated with an eye on the coming parliamentary poll. Should she still doubt the early Tuesday strike on Balakot, she should listen to the BBC broadcast which confirmed the strike, quoting local villagers. Recall how Pakistan had denied the 26/11 attack until residents of Ajmal Kasab’s village had promptly owed him up as one of their own.
In the current attack, Pakistan itself has admitted the Indian response to Pulwama. Let no Indian politician, fearing the voter endorsement of Modi in the coming Lok Sabha poll undermine the derring-do of our brave IAF pilots.