Hyderabad: On 26th February 2019, the Indian Air force crossed the LOC for the first time since the 1971 Indo-Pak war, and carried out audacious airstrikes on Jaish- e- Mohammad training camp at Balakot inside POK.
These daring airstrikes were carried out as a response to a suicide bomb attack on the CRPF convoy at Pulwama. This was a paradigm shift In India's strategy to counter Pakistan’s devious plan to bleed India through a thousand cuts by using terrorism and other proxies on India.
No major terror attack like Pulwama happened in these two years after the Balakot airstrikes. But there was no let up in terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. A total of 41 terror attacks have taken place in Jammu and Kashmir after the Balakot airstrikes. India’s anti-infiltration grid has been quite successful in thwarting Pakistan’s infiltration bids.
As Pakistan got desperate to push in more infiltrators, it resorted to innovative ways like using drones and digging tunnels to transfer men and material into Jammu and Kashmir. Its desperation can be gauged by the number of Ceasefire violations which has increased from 3479 in 2019 to 5133 in 2020.
Both Uri and Balakot airstrikes have demonstrated India's prowess to retaliate and give a bloody nose to Pakistan. Pakistan has tried everything to Internationalize the Kashmir issue, through 1947, 1965 Wars it tried to grab the whole of Jammu and Kashmir but it failed, and again in 1999 the Kargil misadventure was a disaster for Pakistan.
Also read: Balakot, a year on: India's achievements and lessons for the future
For more than 30 years it is pursuing terrorism as a state policy and radicalizing Kashmiri youth to pick up guns and revolt against the Indian state. It has become a habit of Pakistan to stoke fire whenever normalcy returns to Kashmir.
India has said time and again that destroying terror infrastructure and stopping sponsorship of terrorism is the prerequisite for future talks between the two nations.
The Pakistan dispensation should decide the future course of action, whether they want to pursue terrorism as state foreign policy or they want normal relations with India.
