How Far Should India Go To Punish Pakistan After The Pulwama Attack?

An all party meet is scheduled to be held in the Parliament today aimed at discussing India’s next course of action on the Pulwama attack on 14^th february that killed at least 40 CRPF jawans. The whole nation is baying for revenge after the terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed owned up to the heinous transgression.

The mortal remains of the CRPF jawans were brought back to Delhi on February 15 where PM Modi laid wreaths and like a clockwork, that video started circulating in the social media. Such is the slush of Indian milennial. But the hovering question is, will the flame be alive? Will Modi Ji give the security forces free rein to respond to the Military attack?

In one of such random Facebook videos, we saw a gutted father of a martyred soldier speaking about taking an eye for an eye. When a conscientious father vows to turn into  a suicide bomber himself to avenge his young son’s death, it shows how porous is our system that could not save those lives!

It is really startling to see how Pakistan is providing ‘Safe haven’ to those guilty wil impunity. The ponderosity of the incident created ripples in the world media. Many nations have openly condemned this attack. The US too, saw red from this atrocious attack and asked Pakistan to withdraw the immunity that it has given to the designated terrorsist like Masood Azhar. Now, we are keeping a weather eye on the international allies of Pakistan, predominantly China,  for their communiqué. Chinese councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi extended their word of condemnation of the attack to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. They said that China resolutely opposes and strongly condemns all forms of terrorism. Crocodile’s tears? May be yes because China didn’t budge from its position on the terror listing of Jaish-e-Mohammed Chief Maulana Masood Azhar. Azhar was released by the AB Vajpayee government in December 1999, along with Moushtaq Ahmad Zargar and Omar Sheikh in exchange of the retrieval of the passengers in the hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-814.

We are, as a nation now feeling irrepressible hunger for revenge and it is a dish best served cold. Our moment will come like it came after the URI attack when a surgical strike that involved 4 hours and 38 kills in the Pak occupied Kashmir. We are again awaiting the judgement day with bated breath.

There is a mountainous pressure of expectation that rides on the right-wing Bhartiya Janta Party at this moment. The 2016 attack was limited in time and choice of targets which allowed Pakistan to rule out its occurrence. Indian government has to consider that excessive military mobilisation against Pakistan can lead to the danger of uncontrolled retaliation too. India has inconvertible evidence about the how the military group Lashkar-e-Taiba (Let) unquestioningly follows the politically dominant Pakistan army’s orders  and attacks the targets on their behalf.

They have again claimed their presence by carrying out a high-visibility attack on the Indian military in the same South Kashmir pocket where Indian security forces have killed almost 300 Kashmir militants. They have staged this attack after penetrating several layers of security which is a significant intelligence disaster on India’s side.

  India has now removed Pakistan’s Most Favoured Nation’s Trade benefits.  What’s next? are India and Pakistan now at the brink of war?Will India opt for diplomatic isolation?

US National Security adviser John Bolton called his Indian counterpart Ajith Doval to show solidarity. He said that US stands with India as it confronts terrorism so India is definitely on a secure footing.

It is high time that Pakistan snapped ties with Jaish-e-Mohammed or took action against them, what do you think?