India has limited options to retaliate against terror attack: Lt Gen Hooda-OxBig News Network

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on Tuesday that left 26 tourists dead, former General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Northern Command, Lieutenant General DS Hooda said India has limited options available to retaliate against Pakistan, with military force emerging as the only viable route.

“Unfortunately, the way relations have gone with Pakistan, the only option left is the use of military force against each other,” he told The Tribune in response to the incident.

Pointing out that diplomacy is non-functional, he said there is no economic pressure that can be brought on Pakistan, US pressure on Pakistan has not really succeeded in the past, and China is too strongly in the Pakistani camp. That leaves only a hard, kinetic military option, he said.

“How to execute this option or whether to execute this option is something for the government to decide,” Lt Gen Hooda, who was the architect of the 2016 surgical strikes on terrorist camps across the Line of Control (LoC), said, while remaking that the manner in which Hindus were segregated and killed would put enormous pressure on the government to act.

The surgical strikes were in response to a terrorist attack on an Army camp in Uri, which claimed the lives of 18 soldiers. Similarly, in February 2019, after a suicide car bombing killed 40 CRPF personnel in Pulwama, India had carried out airstrikes on terrorist camps in Balakot in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

Commenting on the timing of the latest attack, which occurred during PM Modi’s visit to Saudi Arabia and US Vice-President JD Vance’s trip to India, Hooda added it was a deliberate move to send out signals internationally that the Kashmir issue is still unsettled.

“The government has been saying that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir has improved and tourist inflow has increased. This attack conveys a message that the narrative is not correct,” he said.

On the role of the Pakistani Army in terror attacks, Hooda said that there is enormous pressure on them over the problems they are facing like unrest in Balochistan, and it is “their way of remaining relevant.”

Referring to recent statements by Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir on India-Pakistan relations, he said the Pakistan Army is under so much pressure that they are trying to show that they are still the ideological custodians.

Hooda also described the Pahalgam attack as an act of desperation.

“Unable to target security forces, terrorists are resorting to attacking civilians, who are soft and vulnerable targets. The kind of shock they send across the country and impact tourism is going to be enormous,” he said.

“Terrorism is a theatre. You are targeting not the people you kill, but the larger population. Social media narratives will incite the people in the country and try to create Hindu-Muslim divide and that’s the intent of these terrorists. I hope people do not fall prey to such attempts,” Lt Gen Hooda added.