Pak on alert, India will have to carefully weigh military options

Time of India

23-04-2025

NEW DELHI: With Pakistan already cranking up its entire air defence and alertness levels, India will have to very carefully weigh its military options for limited punitive strikes, if it decides to exercise them, given the risk of escalation with a nuclear-armed neighbour.
"The Pak hand is clear in the
Pahalgam massacre
. There are a variety of military options, short of a full-blown war, on the table. It's for the political leadership to take the final call. If there is a go-ahead, then the retaliatory strikes will be at a time and place of our choosing," a senior military officer told TOI after a flurry of top-level meetings on Wednesday.
The hard-nosed intent for
cross-border retaliation
, in keeping with the Modi govt's self-avowed muscular image on national security issues, was also evident when defence minister Rajnath Singh addressed an IAF event in the afternoon. There would be swift and strong action against not only the terrorists involved in the Pahalgam massacre, but also the orchestrators behind the scenes who conspired to carry out the heinous act on Indian soil, he said.
There is realisation among the military brass here that Pakistan will not be caught off-guard like it was during the Balakot air strikes in Feb 2019 or the earlier ground-based '
surgical strikes
' to take out four '
terror launch pads
' across the Line of Control (LoC) in Sept 2016. With the well-equipped Pakistan military being no pushover, the pros and cons of every option, along with the escalation matrix, will have to be factored into the decision-making.
Military officers, on their part, contend that "carefully-calibrated precision air strikes" against non-state targets by fighters like Rafales, Mirage-2000s and Sukhoi-30MKIs - armed with long-range weapons like the French 'Scalp' air-to-ground cruise missiles, Israeli Crystal Maze missiles and Spice-2000 precision guided penetration bombs - remain "the best and most effective option".
"One can always achieve the element of surprise on Day-1 with airborne strikes. The day after the Balakot strikes, Pakistan managed to surprise the IAF with its 'Operation Swift Retort' because we let our guard down. Lessons have been learnt," another senior officer said.
Govt will have to be fully prepared for escalation if it decides to go for air strikes. A less-escalatory tactical option will be to break the ongoing ceasefire with Pakistan along the 778-km LoC, which has largely held since it was renewed in Feb 2021. This will involve targeted firings by artillery guns and heavy mortars as well as concerted sniping and other such operations to disrupt their patrols in forward areas. "All this can be very effective in raising the costs for the other side," an officer said.
Then, there are shallow raids that can be conducted to destroy the makeshift terror launch pads that are generally located close to Pak army posts to ensure terrorists can cross the LoC in a single night. As per latest estimates, there are 110-120 terrorists present in 42 launch pads along the LoC, with 32 of them being south of the Pir Panjal range and 10 in the north. "Terror launch pads close to LoC can be good targets," the officer said.
If it comes to escalation, then the artillery barrages can be supplemented by longer-range standoff weapons like the 90-km range Smerch and 45-km Pinaka rocket systems and the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, whose strike range has been extended to 450 km.