An Indian air raid on the Pakistani side of the disputed Kashmir has raised the specter of war between two nuclear-armed nations. One Indian scholar told RT that such raids have happened before and full war is not inevitable.
“I do not think this conflict is dangerous for the world or for the two countries,” Smruti S. Pattanaik, research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, told RT. “This air strike and the earlier surgical strike proves that limited military action against the terrorists can be taken” short of resorting to nuclear weapons, she added.
Indian jets bombed locations in Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir on Tuesday, saying they were camps for terrorist groups responsible for the February 14 terrorist attack that killed more than 40 Indian security officers in Pulwama.
This is not the first time Indian aircraft have crossed the line of control partitioning Kashmir, Pattanaik said, noting that air raids had taken place during the 1999 Kargil War.
“Sovereignty cannot be a criteria when all the while Pakistan has been sponsoring terrorism against India,” Pattanaik told RT.
She accused Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency of sheltering and sponsoring groups that carried out the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, and renaming the group that carried out the Pulwama attack so it could avoid responsibility.
At the moment de-escalation is not plausible. For any de-escalation Pakistan has to take visible action against terror groups.
Though China has urged both Islamabad and New Delhi to exercise restraint, Pattanaik believes Beijing will not get involved in the conflict between its southwestern neighbors. China needs to exercise its influence over Pakistan and make it clear that “terrorism as an instrument of state policy cannot be tolerated,” she said.
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