Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday chaired a meeting with the top defence establishment, including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and the chiefs of the three services.
Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan was also part of the meeting, which was held amid India weighing its options for countermeasures following the Pahalgam terror attack, which left at least 26 civilians, mostly tourists, dead.
Modi has vowed to pursue the terrorists behind the attack and their patrons, a clear reference to Pakistan, which has a history of sponsoring terror strikes in India, to the “ends of the earth” and inflict the harshest punishment on them “beyond their imagination”.
Terrorists had gunned down tourists, who were from different parts of the country, in the popular destination of Pahalgam in Kashmir exactly a week ago, on April 22. This most brutal attack on civilians in a long period in the region has sparked a wave of outrage across the country and a demand for retaliatory action against the perpetrators and their handlers.
The prime minister’s tough assertions, coupled with his government’s avowed muscular stand on the issues of national security have heightened expectations of a stringent counteraction from India.
In the past, the Modi government carried out surgical strikes inside Pakistan after the terror attack on army soldiers in Uri in 2016 and the Balakot air strike after the killings of CRPF personnel in Pulwama.
