 This is evening of September 29th and this morning there was a briefing from the Direct General of Military Operations about a command operation across the line of control yesterday by Indian troops which targeted what are called terrorist launch pads in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and destroyed a number of them. Pakistan has denied this and said that there was nothing more than some cross-border firing by small arms and that two of their personnel were killed in the exchanges but obviously there has been some variety of escalation in the ongoing rhetoric between India and Pakistan. So to discuss this in other matters we have with us General Sudhir Wombatkare. General Wombatkare, what do you gather from all that you've heard about the nature of the operations that were conducted last night to an Indian army? I would say it was a well planned, well conducted offensive action against the terrorist launch pads in Pakistan which is about two or three kilometers on the Pakistan side of the LOC. In which sector would these be and is there any such information available? What is the nature of the target and who would have been the troops, the commandos deployed in this operation? The troops deployed would have been the para commandos as a special force where these strikes were precisely which part of the border of the LOC I'm not able to say because I don't have any inside information and even if I had I wouldn't reveal it. But whatever is known on the television is what I'm telling you about but somewhere in northern command because that's where the LOC is. But is there any special point of vulnerability that the Indian army has checked out and has made an estimate would be the best point for such an interest? The points of vulnerability are not a reset assessment and these assessments are continuing and points of vulnerability keep shifting points at which we can have ingress are planned well in advance and these things are known over years, months or years. So at the present moment which were the points of vulnerability which were the points where we could get across the LOC without being spotted would have been of recent reconnaissance. So this involved infantry troops, special forces probably no use of aviation assets or mechanized infantry or any such thing? No, very unlikely because the ingress into Pakistan is just about 2 or 3 kilometers which wouldn't call for any kind of support of helicopters or of mechanized infantry. But it involves the use of night vision devices and such? No, I don't think it requires night vision devices but it's possible that we had night vision devices but it's not necessary. But this is in the nature of a moving target because just as we continue to update our assessment of where they are locating the launch pads they too would be moving these around to ensure that they don't offer a fixed target for us to act against. So you think that they have picked strategically valuable targets and have achieved something of tactical and strategic importance probably? I don't know about the strategic, they are not strategic targets, they are tactical targets. And they would have been acquired over the period of a few weeks at most. But these wouldn't be in the nature of durable assets, they would not be in the nature they would be just maybe a tent or a shed with a roof on it or not something that cannot be reconstructed at fairly short notice. No, the target was not an infrastructural target. The targets were the people who were in the launching pads. But the point is that there have been kills on the Pakistan side and many would have run away, they would have escaped in the darkness. So we have got to have probably photographic evidence or some other kind of evidence to show that actually there was, there was that kind of kills. Yes, just about a week back there were reports that the Indian Army had intercepted some 10 infiltrators and eliminated them. And it later turned out that maybe this was in the nature of psychological operation because there was no concrete proof or any photographic or other evidence of these targets having been achieved. So this obviously is in different league and what makes you think so? Just the fact that there's been a briefing by DGF military operations puts it in different league, does it? This is the first deliberate strike across the LOC which was not planned at the local level, it was planned at a higher level. Local level actions across the LOC may have been there but they are always local level. The question of photographic or other evidence is something that the Pakistanis will deny. They will say that well you've cooked up these photographs. They don't pertain to this particular action. It's always denial is possible. They've been denying all along. But do you think that it serves a tactical purpose for Indian Army to produce the photographic evidence or is just the say so of the DGF military operations sufficient? I do not know whether the army would publicize those photos in order to show that we know we have made so many kills because it's not a question of numbers. The question is that we have made a strike, a planned strike offensive action across the border which Pakistan did not expect. They didn't expect this kind of action at all and we have achieved surprise by doing this. But when you say that they didn't expect this when the signaling has been fairly eloquent, let me say if I could put it that way since the Uri incident when 18 of our soldiers were killed there has been ample signaling both from our political leadership from our new studios particularly and from retired army personnel that this is the tactic that we should adopt. This was not the only one. There were many options which were being thrown into the ether by the TV channels that you know all out war strike and including this so-called surgical strike. There were many options which were talked about including Indus Water Treaty and so many things. So Pakistan may not have expected this particular thing or if they did they wouldn't know at which point and when. In the context of the longer running trouble that India and Pakistan have had between themselves over Kashmir how much of an impact, how much of a dent does this make in our psychological or tactical advantage over the other side? I don't think there is any serious tactical advantage but there is a psychological advantage which we have gained which is that Pakistan army has always thought that Indian army would never come across the border because we are so much under civilian control and we never had the political will to do this kind of thing. Now apparently we have got that political will to do it. The last time we saw that kind of political will was probably Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1965 and also in 1971 when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister. So between 71 and now there has been no political will. In fact when the Pakistanis fired across the border onto Indian positions they would shout across the border saying can you retaliate, what can you do? Go and consult your government in Delhi. But a certain degree of autonomy was given to the field commanders they could retaliate proportionately. I mean there was that unwritten kind of guidance from military headquarters that the Colonel Brigadier whoever is in the field. There has been local response. Right, but this goes beyond that. This goes beyond that. This comes from the top of the political hierarchy. Now how do you anticipate this evolving? Is there a risk of escalation? Pakistan obviously has denied it now but depending upon how India chooses at the level of media operations and psychological operations to proceed they would feel compelled to respond in one way or the other and how would that be? What is your assessment of that? There is always a risk of escalation. But I think this was a fairly well calculated move because it was unexpected from the Pakistan side. And what would be their preferred or likely mode of responding to this? It's a very difficult question because they've got many options and we do not know what option they would exercise at which point in time. So it's very difficult to say. How important is deniability for Pakistan? Because they have denied involvement in Pathankot. They have denied involvement in Uri. They say that this is all part of the larger problem of Jammu and Kashmir and that India has to get smart to the political imprudence of military deployment against this. The most recent attack at Uri in Sunday 18th they said that it's not from Pakistan but it is India which has staged it in order to put the blame on Pakistan. That's the kind of approach they are taking to it that we would shoot our own guys in order to make a case against Pakistan. That's pretty far-fetched and nobody is buying that kind of argument. They used two, typically two kinds of arguments one that it's a false flag operation by Indian forces to discredit Pakistan. But it's part of the completely independent autonomous movement political freedom struggle as they call it in Jammu and Kashmir. They used two of these which points to two kinds of tactics that they deploy. One is activating their assets, militant assets within Jammu and Kashmir. The other is to step up the infiltration from across the border. There are two possible responses. Is there a substantial difference in terms of how India should prepare for either of these? The attack at Uri where they cut through the fencing and came and used incendiary weapons to burn those tanks at those tents is not something which the local Kashmiri Azadi demanders could have done that requires military training. You can't just do that without training. And obviously they have been trained by Pakistan and they could not have been trained by Pakistan within Kashmir. It's obviously on the other side of the LOC that they've received training. So there are launch pads, there are training camps which are known to the whole world and which have been consistently denied by Pakistan. There's been a lot of talk especially since the Uri incident about crossing the nuclear threshold and Pakistan has at least claims to have tactical nuclear weapons, battlefield weapons. Now India has made it clear that it will not use tactical nuclear weapons or seek to develop them because any nuclear use means that the threshold is crossed and which means that all options are on the table after that. So there's a lot of loose talk about this. People talk as if it's a very flippantly about nuclear option but if there's an existential threat to Pakistan, do you see that there's a threat of escalation beyond that threshold? The Pakistan threat of use of tactical nuclear weapon is clearly that if India crosses the border then we will use a tactical nuclear weapon on the Indian troops who have crossed the border or the LOC which means that the tactical nuclear weapon will be used on what is claimed as Pakistani territory. So that should not be a, should not call for a no first use response from India because it would still be no first use. So that means that from India's point of view the threshold is crossed even if it's on Pakistan territory that the tactical weapons are used. It depends on how it is interpreted. What is the signalling from India side? I mean because there is obviously a doctrine in place which... I do not know whether there is a national doctrine in place but the point is that I also do not know whether we have tactical nuclear weapons. We do have... The claim is that we don't, the official position. One would assume that that is true. In which case the nuclear weapon used by India would be a strategic nuclear weapon and for that we have said no first use. Finally what do you think would be the military first and second diplomatic fallout of these in terms of the larger players, the geopolitical players on the scenario? I am pretty sure that China does not want a nuclear conflagration anywhere. Leave alone in South Asia and I don't think any other country wants it but there could be irresponsible people in Pakistan who would get control of nuclear weapons. That is not the government and not the Pak Army. I don't think the Pak Army either is interested in this kind of thing. There is nobody who is really interested in nuclear exchange but ISIS or some other fundamentalist group could get control and that would be a disaster. What would be the reaction of the United States for instance? They just had a meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Secretary of State John Kerry just a week back in New York and the tone of that meeting by all accounts was fairly cordial and Pakistan is still a valuable strategic partner for the United States. That is the story that USA is calling for restraint from both sides from India as well as from Pakistan that the meeting between Kerry and Nawaz Sharif was cordial is not surprising. It would be cordial. There is no reason for them to not meet him or refuse to discuss. I think it is very much in the interest of USA that there is no escalation of conventional warfare or of nuclear warfare in this area. Thank you so much, General Bombadkari. That has been a very interesting discussion. Let's follow further developments very closely. I am sure that this will be something to closely track the next few days. Thank you.