Pakistan prepares for ‘imminent’ Indian attack

Pakistan is reinforcing troops, with the country’s defence minister claiming India’s rhetoric has been escalating in the days since a terrorist attack in Kashmir raised the threat of war.

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel perform during the beating retreat ceremony at the border gates of India and Pakistan. Picture: AFP.

The Pakistani defence minister has said his country is reinforcing troops in anticipation of an “imminent” military incursion by India.

Tensions between the two nuclear powers have been growing since militants last week killed 26 tourists in Kashmir, an attack India has said was linked to Pakistan.

“We have reinforced our forces because it is something which is imminent now,” Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the defence minister, told Reuters, referring to a possible cross-border incursion by India.

“So, in that situation, some strategic decisions have to be taken,” he said, claiming that India’s rhetoric was escalating and that, as a result, Pakistan’s military had briefed the government on the possibility of an attack. He did not expand on why the military believed this to be the case.

India said Monday it had responded to unprovoked small-arms fire along the 740km “line of control” that separates the areas of Kashmir controlled by India and Pakistan respectively. They have fought two wars to wrest total control of the region, in the 1940s and 1960s, neither ending in success for either side.

On Sunday, India’s navy test-fired missiles into the Arabian Sea to show its preparedness and demonstrate its ability to carry out “long-range, precision offensive” strikes.

“The Indian navy stands combat-ready, credible and future-ready in safeguarding the nation’s maritime interests anytime, anywhere, anyhow,” the navy said in a statement.

The air force has also reacted, by flying a series of day and night sorties.

In the past few days, India has unleashed a security crackdown in the region in an attempt to find those connected to the attacks in Pahalgam, a once-restive area whose meadows and cool mountain air have made it attractive to tourists.

Indian police have identified three of the four men suspected of being the assailants and accused Islamabad of harbouring and supporting terrorist groups operating in the region.

Pakistan has previously said it offers diplomatic but not military support to resistance groups. It has denied any role in the Kashmir attack and called for a neutral investigation.

India’s security forces said they had spotted one of the perpetrators in a densely forested area but he had slipped out of sight before they could target him.

Homes of suspected collaborators in Kashmir have been razed and at least two people held for quesioning.

The army said it wanted to understand the security lapse that left the tourists so vulnerable. They were attacked in a vast meadow with not a single soldier around, despite Kashmir being one of the most militarised zones in the world.

The worst attack on civilians in Kashmir for 25 years, it has pushed anger to fever pitch - not least because the victims were asked whether they were Hindu before being killed. It was the deadliest attack on Indian civilians since the Mumbai atrocity in 2008, which was carried out by the Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Even among opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there is a sense that patience with Pakistan has worn thin. India’s prime minister echoed this sentiment in his monthly radio broadcast on Sunday when he said “the blood of every Indian is on the boil after seeing the pictures of the terrorist attack”.

The expectation of most Indians now is that the government will inflict harsher retaliation against Pakistan than its tactical strikes on the country in 2016 and 2019.

Pakistan’s leader, Hanif Abbasi, in turn warned Indians that his country’s nuclear arsenal was not merely for “display” and threatened nuclear retaliation. India has suspended a crucial water-sharing treaty that regulates the supply of water to its neighbour and has long been credited with preventing direct conflict over the precious resource between the two nations.

Abbasi said that if water failed to reach Pakistan, Indians should know that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons “are targeted at you”.

The Times