For the past several days, there is a smokescreen engulfed over the so called “surgical strikes” allegedly carried out by Indian Army inside the line of control (LOC) with Pakistan at four or five places. Pakistan dismissed the Indian assertion of surgical strike and instead claimed that there was an unprovoked cross border fire by Indian Army resulting in the death of its two soldiers.
Indian claim
The operation is said to have lasted for 4 hours (12.30 a.m – 4.30 a.m) on Wednesday night i.e. in the intervening night of September 28 and 29. Around 12:30 p.m. on September 29, 2016, Lt General Ranbir Singh, Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), told a press conference in New Delhi that the “launchpads were targeted after a week of surveillance.
Significant casualties have been caused to these terrorists and those who are trying to support them… without giving details of casualties” (Hindustan Times, New Delhi Sep 30, 2016). The Indian media was quick to add the number of casualties initially to around 100-150, then retracting to 38 and the distance traversed by the soldiers inside LOC was reported as 500 meter to 3 Km. “An army official based in Kashmir said two Indian soldiers were wounded while returning from the raid – one stepped on a landmine and another was shot” (Ibid). The operation was conceived on September 22, when DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh briefed, Prime Minister Narinder Modi, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and National Security Adviser Ajit Kumar Doval alongwith Army Chief General Dalbir Singh, on the possible strike option along LOC. “After examining the options put up by Doval in consultation with the three service chiefs, the surgical strike option was chosen by September 23” (Hindustan Times, New Delhi, Oct 03, 2016). In the meantime, Special Forces were kept ready for such an action, with extensive rehearsals of various contingency plans. The operational unit was waiting for the final nod being taken by the top authorities in carrying out the strikes. At the highest political level, the pros and cons of operation were discussed threadbare on September 28, 2016, at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) between the Prime Minister Narinder Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar; after the three service chiefs had briefed latter. It is from here that “the final go-ahead for the operation was given” (Indian Express, New Delhi, September 30, 2016). Indian Army rejoiced their feat with bravado. The public in India tasted it as an ecstasy of long cherished dream. The surgical strikes were carried out in the wake of the September 18 Uri attack which left 19 soldiers dead, for which the investigation is still underway. The announcement of strikes fetched some positive results as far as domestic viewpoint is concerned; as it helped to assuage the anger of the public after Uri attack and the consequent mounting pressure on the incumbent BJP led NDA Government at the centre.
After the media hype over the Uri attack being perpetrated from across LOC, it had become inevitable for the centre government to take some punitive action to save their skin off the criticism from the masses in general and the opposition parties in particular. So for the first time, New Delhi had to officially acknowledge a military strike across LOC. At least two purposes have been served by the alleged claims. First is internal; to allay the sentiments of the Indian public at large, thereby satisfying their collective conscious and that in turn could influence a series of upcoming state polls. Second is external; to sniff the response of the world community towards the current rhetorical action and the possible preemptive strikes in future. In order to gather and mobilize international support for its action against the so called hubs of terrorism; Indian foreign office was entrusted the job of sensitizing the foreign emissaries in India and their host Governments abroad, on the same day of the announcement of the surgical strikes. This was also done to mitigate the risk of criticism from the international lobby and to pre-empt any negative response from them. Thus Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar briefed the envoys of 25 countries including the US, China, Russia, the UK and France vis-à- vis strikes. “The Foreign Secretary told them that it was “a classic counter-terrorism operation more than a military one” and that it was to neutralize terrorists who were trained to carry out attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and other major Indian cities. They were also told that India has no plans for any further operation as of now” (Indian Express.com, New Delhi, September 29, 2016).
Pakistan’s counter claim
While Indian Army didn’t provide any specific details or evidence of cross border surgical strikes; the claim was promptly denied and outrightly rejected by Pakistan. Pakistan’s Defence Minister alleged the surgical strikes as an inside job of Indian intelligence agencies in a bid to divert the world attention away from: “the burning issue of Kashmir, the atrocities and human rights violations committed on the people of Kashmir by India forces.” The Pakistan Army even downplayed the attack as an existential cross border firing between the two arch rivals, of course, initiated and conducted by Indian side and as such was a cease fire violation by the Indian Army which killed two Pakistani personnel. Within 48 hours of the announcement of the strike by India, Pakistan Army flew a group of local and foreign journalists representing international media outlets, including BBC, Reuters, CNN, VOA, AP, AFP, News Week and BBC Urdu Service, to two sectors, namely Boxor Formation and Hotspring Formation, where Indian Army claimed to have carried out strikes and destroyed some launch pads of the terrorists. But to their surprise, the journalists found no signs of destruction or casualties. None of the villagers living at the foothills of Boxor Formation, seem to have the slightest clue about any intrusion by Indian troops. But they do recall that crossfire had taken place on that particular night and nothing else. “In several dozen interviews, residents of the Bhimber, Chamb and Sahmani districts adjoining the Line of Control said they had been jarred from sleep by the barrage of firepower Wednesday. But none said they had seen or heard anything that supported India’s claim that it carried out cross-border strikes……. All the villagers were up, and we didn’t see any troops from the other side or helicopters…. India says it killed militants here, but the people who live here know each other for generations. If there were some militants somewhere around, they couldn’t have gone undetected. This is all propaganda of India” (The Washington Post, Oct. 2, 2016). The residents of the village Mandhole were interviewed where Indian army claimed to have carried out surgical strike against a camp used by militants. One among them pointed in direction of the Indian military posts which are visible within 500 yards and said, “Indian troops never left their posts. They are lying…….
They never crossed the LOC. A group of villagers standing nearby nodded in agreement” (The New York Times, Oct.1, 2016). The Pakistani Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) raised some serious questions which are hard to answer. He asked, “Where did all the dead bodies go?” “Where were the funerals? …….. Where is the damage?” He even welcomed an independent inquiry while asserting that their side is open to the United Nations observers and journalists (Ibid).
Credibility at stake
The credibility of the Indian Army as well as the media (both electronic and print) will be at stake, if the operation proves out to be a damp squib. The Congress claimed that the UPA also conducted the surgical strikes but without making them public and listed three dates, September 1, 2011, July 28, 2013 and January 14, 2014. But their claim was rubbished when former DGMO from 2012 to 2014, Lt. Gen. Vinod Bhatia burst the bubble of surgical strikes as the existential cross border fire and nothing more than that. He vehemently annulled the notion and said, “We never carried out such strikes earlier. They were not strikes, but actions carried out at very local level. When you are firefighting you may go across the LoC a few meters, but then you cannot call them cross border strikes” (The Economic Times, New Delhi, Oct 06, 2016). There are obvious reasons why some politicians and intellectuals questioned the authenticity of these strikes. First was the backtracking by the Indian median on the number of militants killed, the helicopters used, number of launching pads destroyed, live streaming of the operation and so on. Second was the denial by Pakistan and the suspicion raised by international media and warfare experts over India’s claim. Shawn Snow, a specialist in the political and military developments of Central and Southwest Asia, doubted the claim of surgical strikes without any reprisal whatsoever and wrote: “A surgical strike operation by Indian forces begs the question of whether Indian forces have the capability to launch such a sophisticated and coordinated attack…… India is still on the cusp of building a sophisticated and modernized asymmetrical capability to conduct counter terror operations, while much of its forces are still organized and trained on Cold War models” (The Diplomat, September 30, 2016). One sitting legislator from Kupwara in Kashmir also doubted the veracity of the operation and even claimed that Indian army, in order to provide the false evidence of its surgical strike across LOC, was filming a video of a fake operation in Nowgam and Leepa sectors in frontier district of Kupwara. The people at large were entangled in establishing the logic of modus ponens: why would it take 2 to 3 days to kill a few militants holed up inside buildings while only 4 hours to kill 150 odd of them.
Surgical Strike Doctrine
The notion of surgical strikes is not new to the war machinery; it has been an active thought for quite some years. After 26/11 Mumbai attack, which lasted for four days (November 26 to 29, 2008) across Mumbai, India’s military, political and intelligence leadership went into a huddle, on December 2, 2008, in the Prime Minister's Office in South Block and conceived an idea of covert actions and air strikes in Pakistan. These aerial strikes, of limited nature, were planned against Lashkar-e- Taiba and Jamaat ud Dawa headquarters in Muridke near Lahore. But the idea was later dropped for the possible reasons of backlash, things swirling out of control, lack of precise and coordinated capability and international unacceptability. US senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and US special representative for Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke were sent by President George W. Bush administration to perceive the sentiments both in India and Pakistan after Mumbai Attack and meet the wide spectrum of personalities on both sides. Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister, between 2002 and 2007, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri writes in his book:
“Senator McCain wanted to know from me, in view of my experience, both as former Foreign Minister and as a politician, what the reaction of the Pakistan Army and the public at large would be, if there was a limited air raid on Muridke, the headquarters of the Lashkar-e- Taiba and its political wing, Jamaatud Dawaah (JUD)….. I was horrified at the mere suggestion and said to the two Senators, with Holbrooke keenly listening, that this would result in public outrage. I was certain beyond doubt that the response of the Pakistan Army would be immediate, though measured, and commensurate to the raid at Muridke…….. The public response will be so great that the Pakistan army would be de-legitimised in the eyes of its own people if it does not respond” (Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove: An Insider's Account of Pakistan's Foreign Relations, pp 428-29, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri).
May be in the times to come, people get to know about the authenticity and credibility of the surgical strikes. The truth about Kargil Conflict (May to July 1999) took many years to disseminate after the Kargil Review Committee Report was submitted. That time media grossly exaggerated New Delhi’s claim of the victory. The truth came to fore when Lieutenant-General Kishan Pal, who was then the head of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps and led the Indian Army on ground in the Kargil conflict, broken his silence after 11-years in 2010 to say that he believes India actually lost the war in strategic terms. In an exclusive interview to NDTV, Gen Kishan Pal told: “Well for 11 years I did not speak at all…I did not speak because I was never convinced about this war, whether we really won it…We did gain some tactical victories, we regained the territories we lost, we lost 587 precious lives. I consider this loss of war because whatever we gained from the war has not been consolidated, either politically or diplomatically. It has not been consolidated militarily” (NDTV, New Delhi, May 30, 2010). After all, something has happened at the LOC; where the common denominator in the claims of both sides is: heavy shelling and firing, two Pakistani soldiers killed and one Indian soldier captured. In the end, there is always a hope that “Truth shall see the light”.
The views in this article are the authors own, and does not depict the views of Kashmir Digest. This is an Op-Ed sent via email.
Author: Aasif Ali