Hunting Terrorists In J&K Can Only Take Us So Far — It's Time Pakistan Army's Officer Brass Feels The Heat

Two days ago (on 27 July), Pakistan once again struck India with another attack at the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector of Kupwara, killing one army soldier and injuring four others, including a major.

This is in continuation of a series of attacks that Pakistan-based terrorists have been conducting in Jammu and Kashmir since 2021, intensity of which has increased substantially in the last six months.

This attack in Kupwara, unlike other attacks in Jammu, was a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) strike at the LoC.

Most of these attacks are carried out by a small team of highly-trained terrorists, likely to be ex-Pakistani Special Service Group (SSG) Commandos, in the hinterland — in the dense mountainous forests of Jammu — which has spread from the Poonch-Rajouri region in 2021 to now in the Doda-Reasi-Kathua region.

The response of the Indian state has always been similar, ie, to send more manpower to the region in the hope of controlling the situation.

When the situation gets under control in one region, Pakistan simply turns up the ante in another part of J&K.

Occasionally, when the intensity of attacks crosses a certain threshold, the Indian state reacts very aggressively. Strikes in Uri and Balakot are examples of this. However, they are one-offs that require approval from the top political class.

Consider this: as soon as India abrogated article 370, the Indian state tightened its control of the Kashmir region. It hunted and killed terrorists, broke their overground network, and dismantled their support infrastructure.

As it became hard to run operations in Kashmir, Pakistan focused its attention on a more accessible approach — to induct highly-trained small teams with minimal support. This gives them a higher chance of surviving and evading capture by the security forces.

In response, the army pushed a brigade into the densely-forested mountains of Jammu. No doubt, it is now just a matter of time before the situation is brought back under control.

However, this terror cycle will continue.

Once the situation in Jammu is controlled, Pakistan will switch the strategy to foment trouble at the LoC with its BAT teams (as done in the Kupwara attack) or somewhere else in Kashmir.

Hunting terrorists will also not take the army too far. This will only increase the chances of more casualties.

No matter how many terrorists the army eliminates, Pakistan, with its highly radicalised Islamic society, will always have hundreds of lower-rung foot soldiers to take their place.

Therefore, it's time now to directly hit the nerve centre, from where this is masterminded, run, and controlled, viz, the officers of the Pakistan Army senior command.

These senior officers are the ones keeping the insurgency alive. They know that keeping the India bogey alive is the only way to justify their existence. It’s the high-ranking generals who formulated the policy of 'death by a thousand cuts' and a 'thousand-year war' against India.

And, they can get away with it since they have never faced any retaliation or accountability for their actions.

India should make sure that these generals start feeling the heat. Pinpointed strikes to make the pain felt by the officer class are the need of the hour. The Pakistani officers need to know that they cannot just poke the Indian 'tiger' and get away without any consequences.

Whether retaliation includes targeted campaigns inside Pakistan or long-range air or artillery strikes, it does not matter.

It's only when these officers realise that they cannot get away with such actions against India that one might start to see a drawdown in their support to these activities.

This strategy, however, also runs the risk of inviting retaliation against India’s own officer corps. Adequate measures need to be taken to address that, as well.

In conjunction with that, small-scale cross-border strikes that used to happen but were never announced publicly should be resumed, if not resumed already. This will also inflict pain on those particularly daring lower-rank captains and majors under whose command Pakistani posts at the LoC provide covering fire for the infiltrating terrorists.

It is these strategies that inflict pain on the officer class that might force the Pakistani generals to come to the table, giving a slight chance for India to escape this cycle of violence.