The strike by jihadi militants on Sunday on an army camp near Uri, in which 18 soldiers were killed and 29 injured, has inflamed tensions along the Line of Control (LoC). On Tuesday, the army shot down eight Pakistani militants after intercepting a 15-strong group that was discovered infiltrating from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).
With public opinion and the media aroused, and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing to punish those responsible; and the army's top operations officer declaring the military would retaliate at a time and place of its choosing, both sides of the LoC are bracing for what might come.
New Delhi has pinned the attack on the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militia controlled by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a wing of the Pakistani Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh has declared Pakistan a "terrorist state" and the Indian Army, already grappling with public turmoil in the Kashmir Valley, is evaluating options to extract revenge for Uri.
Pakistan presents an easy target for an Indian diplomatic offensive against its terror-friendly ways, in western capitals and multilateral forums. However, a calibrated military riposte would need more careful consideration.
Business Standard has discussed India's options with senior officers close to the planning process. All of them agree the army can easily initiate retaliation. But, thereafter, there would be two sides in the game. Escalation would be both inevitable and unpredictable.
India's first option is to retaliate through fires (the effect of weapons) without Indian forces physically crossing the LoC. This would involve "fire assaults" on targets across the border, using artillery, missiles, and multi-barrel rocket launchers and Brahmos cruise missiles for deeper-lying targets. A fire assault involves suddenly opening up intense fire with massed weapons on an unsuspecting and carefully chosen target, catching people in the read full story
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