By Lt. General P.C. Katoch (Retd) Former Director General of Information Systems, Indian Army

The ease with which Pakistani terrorists struck in Dinanagar in Gurdaspur 10 kms deep inside India is just one more of the hundreds of terror strikes that Pakistan has managed successfully with just using 3-4 of its rabid spawns. India lost eight citizens including three civilians and eight policemen, SP (Detective) Baljit Singh part of the latter martyrs. Some seven civilians were also reportedly injured when the terrorists opened fire inside the bus going to Kathua. The news talks about all three terrorists killed though there were reports of 8-10 terrorists having infiltrated into Indian Territory. Casualties on our side would have been far more had the bombs fixed on the railway track by the terrorists been activated.

The reaction from India is not different from what has been happening during and after every terror strike; forces on high alert; PM monitoring situation; HM speaks to CM of the State; CM blames Centre for infiltration; HM says, 'We will give befitting reply to terrorism", adding, "We want good relations with Pakistan."; PM confers with HM and NSA; massive hunt operation on; so on and so forth. The martyred will be given suitable awards and one family member given a job as per practice for police. Thereafter, everything will be forgotten till the next terror strike. Meanwhile the ISI-Let and Co will party with special narcotics laced boti-kebab, laugh on HM's statement about 'Befitting Reply" and get busy planning the next terror attack. Meanwhile the political mudslinging will continue in India. Witness the Congress trying to waylay the PM on the terror attack, them bending back when faced with terror strikes and even heinous cross-border incidents like beheadings forgotten — Salman Khurshid breaking protocol to hug and feast the Pakistani PM on a private visit, Manmohan Singh angling withdrawal from Siachen as hinted by Sanjay baru and what have you. Significantly, Congress has assisted Pakistan's proxy war against us by shutting down the Army's Technical Support Division (TSD) which was giving excellent cross-border intelligence. It is no secret that it was the fear of exposure of the cross-border narcotics and hawala nexus because of which the TSD was shut down as it would have exposed the mafia including politicians. We may now keep strategizing that Pakistan is trying to divert attention from her own internal problems and is increasing her arc of terror to include Punjab but the fact remains that the signs of clear and present danger were there past so many years.

The shift in Pakistan's cross-border firing to include the IB Sector itself was indication. More significantly, more than five years back Pakistan had launched her plan to revive the militancy in Punjab, which was also confirmed by Special Forces officers of a friendly country that had trained with their counterparts in Pakistan. They in fact were told categorically that ISI will be able to revive terrorism in Punjab, preceded by massive induction of narcotics in the State, to which we are witness and which is assisted by politicians in Punjab. But aside from the ruling party in Punjab abetting all this, haven't we heard AAP cadres sloganeering Khalistan in recent months at Amritsar. As if this was not enough, AAP leaders have been attending and addressing Khalistani rallies abroad, confident that nothing substantial will happen to them when they return home — same as no arrests of those waiving Pakistani and ISIS flags in J&K. After all, we are not Israel who has enacted 20 years imprisonment for just stone throwing. And well aren't the security forces supposed to lose lives when they chose to don uniform?

Despite all the utopian ancestors like Ayub Khan, Zia-ul-Haq and Mian Musharraf, one may assume Pakistani army chief Raheel Sharif and ISI chief Rizwan Akhtar fully understand that it is not possible to return Punjab to the level of terrorism last witnessed but then what fun to jigger up an already dysfunctional Indian Parliament. Besides how many terrorists were deployed at Charli Hebdo to shake up Europe? It is so very easy to keep the pot boiling and yet count on India-Pakistan cricket series few months of now. After all, the Indian HM has already reiterated India wants good relations with us and are we (Pakistan) not victim of terrorism ourselves. The Modi Sarkar needs to understand that sterile sabre rattling is not going to take us anywhere. Conventional response against sub-conventional threats is very much sterile as Mr Modi's friend Barak would vouch for. We need to establish credible sub-conventional deterrence both against Pakistan and China and the lead for this must be taken by the Prime Minister assisted by the NSA, and this needs professional handling not generalist bureaucrats. The need is quite different from mere intelligence operatives and we have already lost too much time.

It certainly is tall order considering the government has made no move whatsoever to reorganize the higher defence set up, induct military professionals in MoD and merge HQ IDS with MoD. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister needs to take immediate action to revive the TSD even if it exposes the mafia since national security is at stake. There is hardly any point talking to Nawaz Sharif, who is a puppet and political façade in a terrorist state. Pakistan is not going to change till her fate is in the hands of the military-ISI. Next terror attacks need not be in Punjab anyway.