SRINAGAR: Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday articulated India’s resolve to soon strike back at not only those who carried out the horrific Pahalgam attack but also their handlers as security forces intensified their hunt for the Pakistan-backed terror squad that melted into mountain jungles after killing 26 tourists.
Singh’s comments were seen as a stern warning to Pakistan of a crushing response and came shortly after he chaired a two-and-a-half-hour meeting of top officials to review the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, and assessed the likely military options for retaliation, people aware of the matter said.
The meeting was attended by national security adviser Ajit Doval, chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan, and the three service chiefs.
“India is an old civilisation and can never be intimidated by such terror activities. Every Indian is united against this cowardly act. Not only will we reach the perpetrators soon, but also those who conspired behind the scenes to commit this nefarious act on Indian soil,” Singh said at a function in Delhi.
Senior security officials HT spoke to in Srinagar interpreted the phrase “those who conspired behind the scenes” as a reference to patrons of terror in Pakistan. At the meeting chaired by Singh, all retaliatory options were presented to the minister and these will be conveyed to the highest authorities for an appropriate response, the people cited above said.
At the time the marathon meeting was underway in the national capital, home minister Amit Shah had just choppered into Baisaran from Srinagar for an on-the–ground briefing on the terror strike; and teams from the army, the Jammu and Kashmir Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were penetrating deeper into the nearby mountain jungles in pursuit of the terrorists.
In Delhi, Singh said India had zero tolerance for terrorism and the government will take every step to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Hitting out at Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, he said, “History is witness to the withering away of nations not due to the action of the adversary, but due to the result of their own misdeeds. I hope people across the border look at lessons of history more closely.”
His comments came a day after terrorists gunned down a group of tourists in a picturesque meadow near Kashmir’s Pahalgam town, killing 26 people and injuring another 17,in what marked the worst attack on civilians in the restive region in nearly two decades.
Singh had warned Pakistan earlier too.
Last year, he said if terrorists try to disrupt peace or attempt to carry out terror activities in the country, India will give them a crushing reply and hunt them down even in Pakistan, voicing the government’s resolve to take on terror even on foreign soil.
“Our country has lost many innocent citizens in a cowardly attack by terrorists targeting religion. This extremely inhuman act has left us in deep pain. In this hour of grief, I pray for peace to the departed souls,” he said on Wednesday.
New images, seen by HT, showed that terrorists carried out execution-style killings in Baisaran, around six km from Pahalgam. Most of the tourists were killed by gunshots to the head. The terrorists only killed the men, leaving the women and children.
“The terrorists have challenged the narrative of normalcy in Kashmir. This is the route that pilgrims take for the Amarnath Yatra too. ‘Will you conduct the yatra and who will come’ is the message they have tried to convey,” said an official who did not want to be named.
The Kashmir valley observed a hartal (shutdown) on Wednesday against the terror strike. Shops and business establishments were shut through the day. No one will lose more than the locals if tourists don’t come to Kashmir, said Ijaz Ahmed, a 29-year-old Dal Lake Shikara owner.
“We are seeing a hartal against terror for the first time. This shows how much Kashmir has transformed in recent years. We cannot survive without tourism and the government needs to set things right and ensure they come back,” said another Shikara owner Mushtaq Jalla, who is 52.
Previous attacks like the Uri and Pulwama terror strikes drew a hard response from the government, leading to the 2016 surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the 2019 Balakot air strikes, respectively.
The air strikes against a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror base in Balakot were India’s response to the Pulwama suicide car bomb attack in which 40 paramilitary soldiers were killed on February 14, 2019. Twelve days later, the IAF’s Mirage fighter jets hit three targets in Balakot, with five Israeli-origin Spice 2000 bombs with penetrator warheads that allowed them to pierce through the rooftops before exploding inside to cause maximum damage.
In September 2016, India carried out surgical strikes along its de-facto border with Pakistan, taking out several launchpads that militants were using to cross over into the country. The strikes were India’s first direct military response to the attack on the Uri army base that killed 19 Indian soldiers and was blamed on Pakistan-based terrorists.