ET.com poll: 58% of Twitterati says India should avenge Uri with surgical strikes inside Pakistan

In a Twitter poll conducted by ET.Com on what should India’s response be following the terrorist attack on the Uri army base, 58 per cent of twitterati said India should go for a surgical strike while 35 per cent said Pakistan should be isolated globally. Only seven per cent felt that India should continue on the path of bilateral talks.

A surgical strike at the ‘Tactical Level’ will involve covert operation of crossing the Line of Control (LoC), attacking fixed targets and immediately returning. It will be similar to the action carried out by the Indian Army’s Special Forces against Naga insurgents, after crossing into Myanmar. The counter-attack took place following the ambush and killing of 18 army soldiers allegedly by Naga insurgents in Manipur’s Chandel area on June 4 last year.

But now is not the right time for such a surgical strike, defence experts said. "The Pakistan army will be in a state of high alert; they would have moved back the terror camps located along the LoC. You won’t find anyone in those camps and will instead have to face the Pakistan army; so it will not be a surgical operation," said a senior army officer.

"But if India has to conduct a surgical strike, then it has to be at a place and time of our own choosing, which should not be immediate, but later," added the officer.

Furthermore, military action at the ‘Strategic Level’ — if the army crosses the LoC and the International Border — it will turn into a full-fledged war, similar to the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan wars. Such a situation may not be acceptable to the world, said defence experts to ET.Com.

After the 2001 Parliament attack, 'Operation Parakaram' was launched which involved a massive military build-up along the LoC. But the operation didn’t happen.

What should #India do post #UriAttack?

— EconomicTimes (@EconomicTimes) September 19, 2016

There is also the first-strike threat for use of nuclear weapons by Pakistan. "But if we carry out an operation at a tactical level at selected locations along the LoC, then we will keep our actions below Pakistan’s nuclear threshold," another army official told ET.Com.

Isolating Pakistan globally came up as another key option in the poll. India should endeavour to get Pakistan labeled as a rogue state, security experts said. "Pakistan is a supporter of terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) that are attacking India from Pakistan’s soil. The leaders of these groups are based in Pakistan, so where is the question of not labeling the country as a rogue state?" asked a defence official in an interaction with ET.Com.

Another way to act against Pakistan will be to boycott the SAARC summit to be held held in Islamabad in November. As India shares a close strategic relationship with Afghanistan and Bangladesh, it can also convince them to boycott the summit as well. Pakistan can also be isolated through BIMSTEC, an economic grouping of which it is not a part.

"India also has to start acting tough and insist that defence pacts like the Rafale deal with France or the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (signed between India and the US in August to use each other’s land, air and naval bases for repair and resupply) can proceed only if it receives the required support against Pakistan," said the expert.

India could also look at isolating Pakistan economically, some of our readers said in the poll. "India can clamp down on trade with China to ensure that its support to Pakistan diminishes. It may be difficult to get a positive response, but there will be a response nonetheless,” an official said to ET.Com.

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which intends to expand Pakistani infrastructure and deepen its economic ties with China, will link Gwadar port in Balochistan to Xinjiang in north-west China. "With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s support to Balochistan, India can churn up resistance against Pakistan there,” said the official.

Pakistan’s response to terrorist attacks in India by terrorist groups based there, such as the one at Gurdaspur last year, the "no forward" movement in the investigation of an attack on a strategic assets Air Force base in Pathankot in January and the delay in Foreign Secretary levels, clearly indicate that restarting dialogue with Pakistan — a move often made by India — may not be a step in the right direction now.