Pulwama happened and even a moron could connect two dots and decide that its roots lay in India’s disastrous policy in Kashmir. PM Modi (no doubt assisted by his National Security Adviser) jumped the gun, mounted his bandwagon and made the hare-brained unilateral determination (without an investigation) that Pakistan was behind the attack. He also committed India to retaliation closing the door to any deniable response. The die was well and truly cast. The world ignored the mounting evidence of linkage behind the Pulwama and Zahedan attacks and the conclusion that India was the sole beneficiary of the two linked attacks.
India’s retaliation (that is now being seen as a damp squib) came in the form of a pre-dawn attack by Mirage 2000 aircraft loaded with bombs from India’s Avantipura base. The bomb load clearly indicates the intention to bomb an area target and in this case it turned out to be an open area near Village Jabba close to Balakot in Pakistan’s KPK province. Did the pilots have wrong coordinates or was an area chosen, rather than a specific target, to lessen the impact of the attack hoping that Pakistan would not respond and India’s baying Hindu population and its frenzied media would be satisfied. The problem is that India chose a target area outside the disputed Kashmir area well within Pakistan. Pakistan’s interceptors responded and their rapid response has led to the perception that the Indian pilots exited hastily jettisoning their bombs. What was meant to be a retaliation to Pulwama turned out to be a disaster and within the Indian Armed Forces the feeling grew that they had been used for political purposes with no strategic or even tactical goal assigned. The only success for India was that it did not lose a Mirage in the attack because its pilots hightailed it out quickly. Subsequent press conferences and briefings by Indian officials have been confusing but the people and the media celebrated without restraint till reality began to kick in.
Read Complete Article: Balakot and Batgram
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