India braces for retaliation, western states put on alert

NEW DELHI: Fearing tit-for-tat retaliation from Pakistan-based terrorist groups post Indian cross-LoC strike, home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday reviewed country-wide

Published on: Oct 1, 2016, 07:06:39 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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NEW DELHI: Fearing tit-for-tat retaliation from Pakistan-based terrorist groups post Indian cross-LoC strike, home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday reviewed country-wide security measures, particularly in Kashmir, with reports of an eight-strong fidayeen (suicide) squad sneaking into Srinagar.

All western states bordering Pakistan have been placed on alert with state chief secretaries instructed not to go on leave.

Authoritative sources said that the government was expecting a retaliation from Pakistan with the target being Indian Army establishments in Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi.

On Thursday, the security agencies issued an alert about a possible suicide attack by Pakistani jihadists in Srinagar, with security forces as target.

Singh discussed all possible measures with senior officials, including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Intelligence chiefs.

The home ministry assessment is that after the Indian Army inflicted serious and large scale casualties by attacking the terrorist launch pads in Jammu and Kashmir, terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed may activate their border action team for retaliation.

Security agencies expect Pakistani border action along the LoC in Machhil, Nowgam, Mendhar and Rajouri sectors — where the Indian Army destroyed seven terrorist forward staging locations.

There was firing by unknown militants on a CRPF-J&K police check post on Shopian-Kulgam road on Friday evening with no casualties.

While the security forces have gone on high alert in Jammu and Kashmir, Singh also reviewed security arrangements in the Indian hinterland, particularly in New Delhi and Mumbai.

Senior officials of the home ministry have issued instructions to Delhi and Mumbai police to ensure that any terrorist action in the form of indiscriminate firing or bombs is either prevented or foiled.

The Indian Army and defence establishments in the Capital have been particularly secured so that they are not targeted by terrorists to avenge the cross LoC strike.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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