NEW DELHI: Despite Pakistan’s repeated offers to resolve outstanding issues via dialogue for the sake of peace in the region, Indian officials continued to issue hostile statements, fuelling war hysteria.
In a latest statement, Indian defence minister said the country will use the firepower of its navy in response to any future “aggression” by Pakistan.
The statement came weeks after the fiercest fighting in decades between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Relations between Pakistan and India are tense after four days of fighting this month, which involved fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery before a ceasefire was announced.
“If Pakistan resorts to anything evil or unethical, it will, this time, face the firepower and ire of the Indian Navy,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant off the coast of the western Indian state of Goa.
A spokesperson for Pakistan’s military referred Reuters to a May 12 statement, which said there would be a “comprehensive and decisive” response whenever Pakistan’s sovereignty was “threatened and territorial integrity violated”.
The latest fighting erupted after 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed in an April 22 attack in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan without offering any evidence. Pakistan has rejected Indian allegations and called for holding independent probe into the incident.
A ceasefire took effect on May 10 and a top Pakistani military official told Reuters on Friday that both countries were close to reducing their troop build-up along their border to pre-conflict levels.
The Indian Navy has said it deployed its carrier battle group, submarines and other aviation assets in the northern Arabian Sea within 96 hours of the April 22 attack.
Defence Minister Singh said ‘Operation Sindoor’, under which India launched the strikes on Pakistan, was paused, but not yet over.
“We stopped our military actions on our own terms. Our forces had not even started showing their might,” he said.
Earlier this month, Pakistan’s armed forces launched a large-scale retaliatory military action, named “Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos”, and targeted several Indian military targets across multiple regions.
The military action came in response to India’s unprovoked missiles and drone strikes on civilians and military installations in different parts of Pakistan.
Pakistan downed its six fighter jets, including three Rafale, and dozens of drones. After at least 87 hours, the war between the two nuclear-armed nations ended on May 10 with a ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States.
According to ISPR, a total of 53 individuals, including 13 personnel of the armed forces and 40 civilians, were martyred in Indian strikes during the recent military confrontation.
