India yesterday said it carried out ‘surgical strikes’ on militant launch pads across the border in Pakistan, a claim Islamabad denied, insisting there had been only cross-border clashes that left two of its soldiers dead.
Tension between the neighbours has been high since an Indian crackdown on dissent in Kashmir following the killing by security forces of Burhan Wani, a young separatist leader, in July.
It rose further when New Delhi blamed Pakistan for a militant attack on an army base in Uri in Kashmir in which 18 soldiers were killed. It was the heaviest toll on the Indian army of any single incident in 14 years.
Islamabad says India has provided no evidence the attack was the work of Pakistan-based militants or the country’s intelligence agencies.
India last announced it had conducted cross-border strikes in June 2015 against rebel camps in Myanmar, in response to an ambush that killed at least 18 Indian soldiers in the north-eastern state of Manipur. The Indian government described the raid as unprecedented at the time and signalled similar tactics could be used along its western border with Pakistan.
On Wednesday, officials from several countries said a November summit of the South Asian regional group due to be held in Islamabad may be called off after India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan said they would not attend.
Kashmir is one of the most militarised disputed regions in the world. More than 700,000 Indian troops are stationed in the Kashmir Valley, dealing with a popular independence movement and an armed insurgency internally. They also stare down almost 200,000 Pakistani troops on the other side of the border.
Any military confrontation between India and Pakistan can lead to a disaster of epic proportions.
Both have nuclear weapons. If they fought a war detonating 100 nuclear warheads (around half of their combined arsenal), each equivalent to a 15-kiloton Hiroshima bomb, more than 21mn people will be directly killed, about half the world’s protective ozone layer would be destroyed, and a “nuclear winter” would cripple monsoons and agriculture worldwide, says a study.
The study by researchers from Rutgers University, University of Colorado-Boulder and University of California, Los Angeles, says about 21mn people – half the death toll of World War II – would perish within the first week from blast effects, burns and acute radiation in India and Pakistan.
Another 2bn people worldwide would face risks of severe starvation due to the climatic effects of the nuclear-weapon use in the subcontinent, according to a 2013 assessment by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, a global federation of physicians.
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability has previously deterred India from responding to previous attacks.
New Delhi and Islamabad must exercise restraint and open channels of communication because of the dangerous consequences of the escalation along the borders.
The people of Kashmir have the highest stake in peace as many tragedies have befallen them due to violence in the last two decades. Like siblings India and Pakistan have remained locked in rivalry, but the consequences of continued animosity will be worse.
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