Is India Planning for a War with Pakistan?
Pakistan is mobilizing international support in its favour and has recently sought United Nations’ (UN) intervention to get the Kashmir issue resolved.
By Rakesh Raman
As Kashmir has been an apple of discord between India and Pakistan, the territorial dispute in the Kashmir valley has assumed alarming dimensions after the failed visit of the all-party Indian delegation that went there Sunday to hold dialogues with different stakeholders.
Today, India’s Chief of Army Staff General Dalbir Singh met Home Minister Rajnath Singh who led the delegation on a two-day visit to Kashmir, although the government has not released the contents of the discussion between the army chief and the minister.
However, the meeting holds importance in view of the fact that Pakistan’s President Mamnoon Hussain had said Tuesday that Pakistan is ready to face any kind of aggression.
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“We are very much aware of our defence needs and are fully capable of giving a befitting response to any kind of aggression,” Mamnoon Hussain had said.
He was presumably responding to conjectures that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi may declare a war against Pakistan.
It is a general feeling that Modi is deliberately trying to complicate the whole Kashmir issue to divert attention of Indians who are reeling under a complete socio-economic chaos in the country. Earlier last week, an Indian political leader Mayawati had stated that Modi may trigger war with Pakistan to hide his failures.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is mobilizing international support in its favour and has recently sought United Nations’ (UN) intervention to get the Kashmir issue resolved, although India resists any external interference.
[ UN Human Rights Chief Says Beware of the Demagogues ]
As the hostility between the two countries has reached an unprecedented peak during the past two months, India is preparing on multiple fronts to deal with the troubling Kashmir issue.
For example, General Dalbir Singh visited Monday the Gajraj Corps at Tezpur, Assam. According to a government statement, he is visiting various formations of the army to review their operational readiness and the internal security situation.
He also reviewed the defence preparedness of Gajraj Corps as it is deployed on the line of Actual Control, the de facto boundary between India and China. China also holds a part of Kashmir.
Moreover, India is taking fresh measures to protect the Indo-Pakistan border. Last week, a special committee constituted by India’s Ministry of Home Affairs submitted its report with recommendations to strengthening protection on Indo-Pakistan border.
The objective of the committee was to strengthen border protection and address the issue of gaps and vulnerability in border fencing along Indo-Pakistan border.
[ UN Human Rights Office Denied Access to Kashmir ]
Kashmir has been facing a series of violent incidents since the killing of a 22-year-old rebel leader Burhan Wani by the Indian security forces on July 8 in an encounter which many believe was avoidable.
Nearly 80 people have died and thousands injured in the conflicts between the supporters of Burhan Wani and the Indian security forces in Kashmir, which is a disputed territory between India, Pakistan, and China.
Kashmir has always been a conflict area between India and Pakistan since 1947 when both these countries got freedom from the British rule. In order to stake their claims over Kashmir, India and Pakistan have fought two bloody wars in 1965 and 1971, besides incessant skirmishes between the rival armies.
Photo courtesy: Press Information Bureau
