As the nation remembered with a shudder the Pulwama terror attack day and paid homage to the 40 martyred CRPF jawans on Tuesday, it is also time to take a look at the way its perpetrators have been cornered. The Pakistani terror outfit JeM that claimed responsibility for the outrage and the Islamic nation’s political and military leaderships that worked from behind have been tamed in multiple ways. India’s retaliation was swift and staged in less than a fortnight. The actual number of the dead in the IAF airstrike in Balakot closer to the military headquarters of Rawalpindi was not released by Pakistan. Yet, the message was loud and clear. The Indian military virtually called the bluff of the Pakistani generals, the bunch that had been threatening India with dire consequences including use of nuclear bombs if ever an attack from the Indian side happened. The Pakistani military ran for cover when IAF jets roared their way to their targets deep inside and rained bombs. Pakistan refused media access to the spot and employed usual deceit to say “only some pine trees were bombed.” A dampener for India in its immediate aftermath was the loss of an IAF fighter plane, just as Pakistan too lost one in a direct engagement over the skies up the border region.
The nervousness of the Pakistani political leadership in the hours past the Balakot strike was best reflected on the face of then Prime Minister Imran Khan himself. Shamed to their bones, the Pakistani generals have stopped threatening India. The frequent border firings along the Line of Control (LoC) have mostly been stopped. There have been fewer attempts at infiltration by the Pakistani terrorists for creating mayhem on this side of Kashmir. Kashmir itself lost its special status and was turned into a Union Territory soon after the Modi government returned to power in 2019. The positives on the Kashmir front here are spectacular; and the unrest in the PoK on the other side has surprisingly reached a stage wherein public demonstrations seeking its merger with India have been repeatedly staged by those disenchanted with Islamabad’s governance deficit. Pakistan is caught in a debt trap vis-à-vis China and shows signs of an economic disaster and disintegration. Balakot, past Pulwama, was the starting point of Pakistan’s climb-down though terrorist networks still remain active there; more to Pakistan’s own disadvantage. What also should be borne in mind is that these outfits had laughed their hearts out after the November 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai that had killed some 175 innocents. At that time, it was India’s turn to remain stunned.
