Post Surgical Strike: What India plans for future?
New Delhi, September 29: After the Thursday’s Surgical strike by Indian Army crossing the Line of Control, India is trying more ways to economically and diplomatically squeeze Pakistan.
According to the Indian Army Chief, the teams of elite troops entered into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and killed many terrorists. They were engaged there in spreading cross border terrorism through which Kashmir unrest and other major terroe attacks in various cities of India.
The Surgical strike could be considered as a direct response to the attack at an army base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir on September 18 by Pakistani terrorists. In the attack India lost 19 soldiers. The Uri failure is the army’s worst setback in the region in over ten years.
Alike what it had responded to any encounter or a success by the indian Army, Pakistan has denied the raids by India and accused India of “fabrication of truth”. Pak also alleges that what in fact took place was unprovoked cross-border firing by India.
From the time of Uri attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has acted quickly and used New Delhi’s rising economic and diplomatic weight to squeeze Pakistan, a country which is one-fifth of India’s size and with an economy seven times smaller than India.
A security official unnamed by news agency Reuters described the new approach as moving from a “defensive posture to defensive offence”, under which India works on the vulnerabilities of Pakistan – its economy, internal security and international image as an unstable nation, home to terrorist groups.
Options under consideration include choking trade with Pakistan that takes place through third countries such as the United Arab Emirates, even though it is limited and in India’s favour.
These measures collate into a far more assertive posture by India under PM Modi than the previous government, but experts point out that it risks further escalating tensions between the countries, reports ndtv.com.
Recent governments have held off launching military strikes, including when gunmen from Pakistan carried out a three-day assault on Mumbai in 2008, leaving 166 dead in India’s worst-ever terror attack.
Official trade between India and Pakistan was a modest $2.6 billion in 2014, but informal trade is estimated to be closer to $5 billion, with jewellery, textiles and machinery exported from India through third-country ports such as Dubai.
India’s informal imports from Pakistan through the same channels consist of textiles, dry fruits, spices and cement.
Officials believe a crackdown on such trade, in which some former members of Pakistan’s powerful military are believed to be active, would help increase the pressure.
