The needle of suspicion for the aerial attack on an Indian Air Force base close to the Pakistan border in Jammu shortly after midnight on Saturday points at the Lashkar e Taiba terrorists. The damage caused may not have been substantial but has left two IAF personnel injured. Significantly, this was the first attack by terrorists with drones and they targeted two spots. The attack could be seen as a continuation of the series of attacks on Indian military installations by Pakistani elements, first in the Pathankot air base in Punjab and later at a military installation in Uri in Baramulla district of JK, both in 2016. As many as 17 army personnel had been killed in Uri and seven security personnel in Pathankot. The “terrorist” attacks on India being mainly the handiwork of the top army top brass there. Hence the Pakistani establishment must be held responsible. A surgical strike by India was Delhi’s swift answer to Uri and some terrorist cells were destroyed on the other side of the border. Similarly, the Balakot airstrike by the IAF happened a week after the Pulwama terror attack in which 46 CRPF personnel were killed by terrorists. The drone attack this time is equally serious though there are no casualties. The use of drones from across the border to target a military air base should be seen as an invitation to a fresh military confrontation. Drones from Pakistan were airdropping arms and drugs in Jammu & Kashmir recently.
Notably, India did not take the Pathankot attack with the seriousness it deserved. A parliamentary panel found fault with the Defence Ministry two years later for its “failure to improve the security cover for military installations”. Now, the explanation from the security forces is that radars could not detect drones. Despite all the happenings along the border and LoC regions over the past several years, how situations like these go undetected is a surprise. The seven years of the Modi government saw the largest number of offensives from Pakistan along the border regions. The “unprovoked” firings from there were innumerable. After Balakot, there was a palpable respite. But, a new phase of offensive seems to have begun from the Pakistani side if some other terrorist offensives in the recent weeks too were any indication. The palpable improvement in the law and order situation in Jammu and Kashmir in recent times is bound to provoke the anti-India elements including the ISI in Pakistan to scheme for more bloody offensives.
