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Govt under pressure to act against Pak

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani are under pressure from a section of the Ministry of Defence to take "decisive action" against Pakistan to end militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.

"How long will India tolerate army personnel in J&K being made militants' targets in so galling a fashion, wherein militants make cowardly attacks and then disappear," said an MoD official.

He told rediff.com that army casualties included officers and jawans from various religious communities. Relatives of the victims wanted the government to take "drastic action" against Pakistan, the chief instigator of the militants, he pointed out.

He said many MoD officials had conveyed their sense of disgust at frequent attacks by the militants to Vajpayee and Advani, demanding that Islamabad be taught a decisive lesson once and for all.

This section of the MoD has stressed that information gleaned internationally indicated that despite boastful assertions, Pakistan does not have the delivery system to use nuclear bombs against India.

Thursday's improvised explosive device blast in Srinagar, which claimed 13 lives, including that of a photo-journalist, and injured many others, has come as the proverbial last straw to this section, which wants the government to act before "we undergo any further humiliation."

Ministry of External Affairs sources confirmed that Vajpayee, during his visit to the United States in September, will apprise permanent United Nations Security Council members US, Russia, United Kingdom, France, and China that enough is enough and it is time Pakistan stopped under-estimating India's capability to thwart provocation.

They pointed out that Vajpayee would tell leaders of the international community that another militant attack on innocent people in J&K would elicit a strong response from his government.

"No, we are not saying that war clouds are gathering, but another provocation by the militants and Pakistan will pay dearly for it, " sources emphasised. They did not elaborate.

The US, UK, other European countries and Japan condemned the recent killings in Kashmir, holding Pakistan responsible for instigating the massacres. This has been stressed by government officials, who are clamouring for Pakistan to be taught a lesson it is not likely to forget

Ministry of Home Affairs officials, including special secretaries Tilak Raj Kakkar and Mukund Bihari Kaushal are understood to have reported that messages from across the border are consistently being intercepted, whereby the authorities in Islamabad are egging on terrorist groups to continue attacking Indian army and civilian targets.

"No doubt, it's an explosive situation and our leadership is well apprised of it. But we will not take any hasty decisions because if we are forced to act, it will be decisive," the sources pointed out.

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