NEW DELHI: The Line of Control (LoC) will no longer be sacrosanct for India if Pakistan continues to export terrorists. This was indicated by India to Pakistan after which has been claimed the September 29 surgical strikes which took Indian troops into Azad Kashmir to strike against terrorist launch pads, top-level sources in the government were quoted by Times of India on Monday.
India’s current stand is different from that of 1999. The Kargil conflict compelled Pakistan to respect the LoC as inviolable. After Pakistan tried to redraw the line with its Kargil intrusion and was forced back, then US president Bill Clinton said that borders should not be redrawn in blood.
The longer term aim of the alleged surgical strike was to signal to Pakistan that it would have to adjust to a ‘new normal’ — the ‘new’ was established last week, the ‘normal’ will have to be built up over time. Pakistan will now have to factor in a possible Indian response, where surprise and speed will be the key, and unpredictability the usual, where the LoC will matter less and less. For instance, Pakistan did expect an Indian response after the Uri attack and had beefed up certain key posts.
Sources said as India improves its defensive capabilities, it plans to increasingly take pre-emptive action against terror. For Pakistan, this means it will now have to factor in an Indian reaction. This will raise costs and vulnerability. “We have made our threshold a variable. We have inserted a new element of uncertainty,” a source said.
In their conversation last week Pakistani NSA Nasir Janjua talked “de-escalation” with Ajit Doval , but at the top levels of the Indian government, there is a growing belief that Pakistan could retaliate with a terror attack in the coming weeks, the newspaper said.
