DG ISPR hits back at Indian Army Chief threat of striking Pakistan, nuclear bluff
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NEW DELHI: The Director General ISPR Major General Asif Ghafoor has responded back to the Indian Army Chief threats of striking inside Pakistan if the New Delhi government asks the Indian Army to do so.
DG ISPR has said that the statement of the Indian Amy Chief of nuclear bluff and striking inside Pakistan is childish and irresponsible.
Pakistan is a responsible nuclear state and its nuclear weapons are a potent deterrent for the threats form its eastern borders. India has been involved in terrorism in Pakistan through the unconventional means however Pakistan Army is capable of defending the country and thwart the Indian conspiracies.
Such kind of statement doesn't go well with a senior officer and Indian Army should not stay in any kind of misunderstanding regarding attacking Pakistan.
Pakistan Army is a professional force and will give a befitting response to any kind of misadventure from the Indian Army.
Earlier Indian Army Chief had rejected the Pakistan's reckless threats about its tactical nuclear weapons being an effective counter to India's conventional military superiority.
"China is a powerful country but we are not a weak nation...We will not allow our territory to be invaded by anyone. We are prepared," said Army chief General Bipin Rawat in the backdrop of the People's Liberation Army needling India with as many as 415 "border transgressions" across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) last year, which also saw the 73-day face-off at Doklam and 215 other troop confrontations.
Speaking in the run-up to the Army Day on January 15, Gen Rawat also said "Pakistan's nuclear bogey" will be thoroughly exposed if it actually comes to a war with the western neighbour, which often brandishes its short-range Nasr (Hatf-IX) nuclear missiles as a battlefield counter to India's `Cold Start' strategy of swift, high-intensity conventional attacks into enemy territory.
"We will call their bluff. If given the task, we will not say we cannot cross the border because they have nuclear weapons," he said.
The Army chief was sceptical about US President Dobald Trump's stern warning to Pakistan against harbouring terrorists leading to any concrete change on the ground as far as India was concerned. "We will have to do our own job," he said, adding the US had its own "compulsions" to maintain relations with Pakistan.
But even as Indian Army continues its punitive fire assaults to "inflict pain" on Pakistan Army, Gen Rawat said his force was "shifting its focus" from the western front to the "northern borders" with China.
"Yes, China has become assertive and is exerting pressure. But we are capable of (militarily) handling this assertiveness along the border...the terrain is to our advantage," he said.
Though the government is dealing with China in a holistic manner, with the diplomatic engagement "going well", India should take care to ensure its neighbours like Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar, Bhutan and Afghanistan "do not drift away" from it. "We have to see we are not isolated against China in this region," he said, also referring to the emerging "quadrilateral" with the US, Australia and Japan in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain.
