Roving Periscope: IWT, Op Sindoor, Baluchs, and IMF…Pak may head to its nemesis

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Broke and cashless Pakistan, braving hunger, poverty, and inbuilt terror threats, has its plate full, as it hurtles from one crisis to another. Daily.

Barely had it estimated the huge losses to its faltering economy and agriculture due to India suspending the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) on April 23, and counting its dying soldiers in anti-Islamabad Baluchistan, facing threats from the ‘ungrateful’ Taliban and co., it is now facing the full fury and might of India’s armed forces in Operation Sindoor, unfolded on Wednesday, to avenge the massacre of 26 Hindu-only tourists in Pahalgam at Jammu and Kashmir on April 22.

And on Friday, May 9, it has to face the hawks of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to secure the last lifeline, the USD 1.3 billion instalment of the overall USD 7 billion bailout package, at a time India has already warned the global lender to make sure how Islamabad uses these funds.

Additionally, India has cautioned the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other multilateral institutions like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to be wary of the man jackbooting the failed state and sunk economy: Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), Asim Munir, nicknamed as ‘Mullah Munir’ because of his emergence as a corrupt Islamist terrorist donning a military unform.

This Pakistan Army chief– General Syed Asim Munir Ahmed Shah—who has single-handedly plunged his hapless country into its nemesis, is the son of the Imam of a mosque in Rawalpindi. Munir famously wanted to become Zia ul-Haq II. That ambition, reports say, drove him into Pahalgam, and invited an Armageddon: he prompted India to launch Operation Sindoor on Wednesday.

Everybody knew that Munir, like Zia, would inflict a thousand cuts on India. But Zia was far more polished. General Zia ul-Haq, the then President of Pakistan, attended a Test match between India and Pakistan in Jaipur in February 1987. He also met the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, made all the politically-correct sounds, loved and lifted children in his arms…he spread a charm offensive across a ’secular’ media, while he tried to turn a buttered knife in Mother India’s belly. 

His disciple Munir, however, has no time. He had to retaliate to Operation Sindoor. He did so within hours, on Thursday.

Predictably, a terrified Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Shebhaz Sharif—his elder brother Nawaz Sharif is now safely ensconced and watching the unfolding game, all over again, from London!—called an emergency meeting of his boisterous but stupid ministers in Islamabad. Petrified, they are all facing ouster and probable return of yet another military dictator intending to rule a fraction of Pakistan—minus Baluchistan.

Nawaz’s army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, became his nemesis; now Shehbaz is stepping into the shoes of his elder brother…

Reports said on Thursday afternoon that the Rawalpindi Stadium, which was scheduled to see a cricket match this evening, suffered extensive losses.

Now, the US has asked its citizens to leave Lahore and other cities on India’s radar. Other countries will follow.

India, which has not officially closed Operation Sindoor, was waiting for Munir’s response. He did not disappoint New Delhi.

For, his armed forces, with whatever dwindling ammunition they are left with after selling a bulk to Ukraine in 2023, tried to ‘destroy’ as many as 16 Indian cities on Thursday. All in vain.

India was waiting for retaliation. Its armed forces responded with precision, and neutralized Pakistan’s so-called air defence system, which Pakistanis themselves jokingly call Chinese khokhas (shells!)

In New Delhi, the Defence Ministry confirmed on Thursday that Indian countermeasures, including its Integrated Counter Unmanned Aircraft System and air defence units, neutralised the threats from Pakistan which was trying to convince its own people that it had the capability matching its war rhetoric.

In a retaliatory strike, Indian forces destroyed a Pakistani air defence system in Lahore and targeted other radar sites across the border.

Alert and fully geared to the ongoing Operation Sindoor, Indian military foiled every single attempt by the Pakistani soldiers to engage a number of military targets in Northern and Western India. New Delhi used state-of-the-art drones and missiles on the intervening night of May 7 and 8 to call the Pakistani bluff.

The Pakistani military attempted to target civilian populated towns and cities like Awantipura, Srinagar, Jammu, Pathankot, Amritsar, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Adampur, Bhatinda, Chandigarh, Nal, Phalodi, Uttarlai, and Bhuj, they said.

These were promptly neutralised by the Integrated Counter Unmanned Aircraft System (Grid and Air Defence systems), popularly known as drones, the defence ministry said.

“The debris of these attacks is now being recovered from a number of locations that prove the Pakistani attacks,” it said.

“Today morning Indian armed forces targeted air defence radars and systems at a number of locations in Pakistan. Indian response has been in the same domain with the same intensity as Pakistan,” the ministry said in a readout.

“It has been reliably learnt that an air defence system at Lahore has been neutralised,” it said.

The ministry said Pakistan has increased the intensity of its unprovoked firing across the Line of Control using mortars and heavy calibre artillery in areas in Kupwara, Baramulla, Uri, Poonch, Mendhar and Rajouri sectors in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Sixteen innocent lives have been lost, including three women and five children, due to Pakistani firing in civil areas of Jammu and Kashmir,” the ministry said.

Here too, India was compelled to respond to bring mortar and artillery fire from Pakistan to a halt, it said.

“Indian Armed Forces reiterate their commitment to non-escalation, provided it is respected by the Pakistani military,” the ministry said.