DGMO has suggested that the Indian Army is on full alert, bracing itself for a Pakistani response. So far, Pakistan’s army and government have been dismissive of Indian claims and have not responded in any other way but by condemning the attack.
Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, reading out a pre-prepared statement, said that “Significant casualties have been caused to terrorists and those trying to shield them. We don’t have a plan to further conduct such strikes. India has spoken to Pakistan”.
The government has been under pressure for some time after the Uri attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tweeted promise that the Uri killers “would not go unpunished” has probably finally bore some fruit and resulted in this attack.
However, a full all out war may cost the world dearly. According to an IndiaSpend report “If India and Pakistan fought a war detonating 100 nuclear warheads (around half of their combined arsenal), each equivalent to a 15-kiloton Hiroshima bomb, more than 21 million people will be directly killed, about half the world’s protective ozone layer would be destroyed, and a “nuclear winter” would cripple the monsoons and agriculture worldwide.
As the Indian Army reports striking terrorist camps across the border, and a member of Parliament (MP) of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) urges a nuclear attack and the Pakistan defence minister threatens to “annihilate” India in return, these projections, made by researchers from three US universities in 2007, are a reminder of the costs of nuclear war.”
According to Sameer Patil, fellow, national security, ethnic conflict and terrorism at Gateway House, a think tank in Mumbai. A major attack by Pakistan’s nuclear-tipped medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) would likely target India’s four major metropolitan cities–New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai (depending on where the missile is fired from) and “Given the smaller geographical size of Pakistan,” said Patil, India would likely target “Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi and the Pakistani Army Armed Corps headquarters at Nowshera”.
However, he cautioned: “The fallout of the nuclear attacks on Lahore and Karachi, for instance, would not just be restricted to the Pakistani territory, and depending on the wind directions, can affect both Indian and Afghan border territories.”
Inputs from IndiaSpend
