In a stern warning to Pakistan, India on Tuesday said that “all options will be on the table” in the event of another terrorist attack in the country.
Sources said the strike by the Indian Air Force (IAF) on the biggest terror camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) at Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakthunkhwa province last week was meant to demonstrate the will and capacity of India to act against cross-border terrorism.
Emphasising that India would not be deterred in its fight against terrorism, they asserted that no country had offered mediation between India and Pakistan following last week’s heightened tensions between the two countries.
Major global powers had been firmly told by India that this was not an India-Pakistan issue but the issue of terrorism which India was determined to combat.
Sources maintained that there was no question of holding any dialogue with Pakistan. India would continue to insist that Pakistan take demonstrable action and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure on its soil.
Sources said India had handed over to the US the evidence of Pakistan using F-16 fighter planes in last week’s aerial combat with India. New Delhi was confident that Washington would look into the use of these fighter jets against India.
India, sources said, would now focus on stepping up diplomatic pressure on Pakistan and added that New Delhi was reaching out to all UN Security Council members, urging them to designate JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar as a global terrorist — a move vetoed at least thrice by Pakistan’s ‘all-weather friend’ China.
Sources said recent interviews given by Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi clearly suggested that the Pakistan Government was in touch with the JeM chief. This had strengthened India’s case for banning Azhar, a move that would cripple the activities of his terror network.
Last week, Pakistan had admitted that Azhar was in Pakistan. Azhar was “unwell” so much that he “can’t even leave his house”, Qureshi had told CNN in an interview.
Sources said India would take reports from Pakistan on Azhar being unwell with a ‘pinch of salt’. They recalled that such reports had also appeared in the Pakistani media about terrorists like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar.
India, sources said, was determined to see that the JeM chief was brought to justice.
On last week’s meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Abu Dhabi at which External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was the ‘Guest of Honour’, sources said all member countries of the grouping attended the meeting, barring Pakistan.
They underlined that it was therefore Pakistan which was isolated in what it always considered its own backyard.