"Not Even Pakistanis Trust Pakistan": Ex Minister's "New Red Line" Claim

India's recent military action against Pakistan has established a new era in India's doctrine of response to cross-border aggression, according to Rajeev Chandrasekhar, senior BJP leader and former Union Minister. In an exclusive interview with NDTV on the deeper implications of Operation Sindoor, Mr Chandrasekhar said that "not even Pakistanis trust the Pakistan state." 

India's three-day military campaign, codenamed Operation Sindoor, which began on May 7, targeted active terrorist infrastructures and military installations deep inside Pakistani territory and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). It was launched in response to a deadly terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam, which killed 26 people. India attributed the attack to Pakistan-based terror outfits operating with the support of Pakistan's military establishment.

Mr Chandrasekhar, currently serving as BJP's Kerala unit, said Pakistan's military uses terrorism to distract its people from domestic failures. "Pakistan has had a long, dubious history of trying to distract its own people from its failings and its slide towards a failed state by occasionally having these terror attacks against India," he said.

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He went further, naming Pakistan's current Chief of Army Staff, General Asim Munir, as a "very dubious general" and accused him of attempting to communalise recent hostilities by framing them in a religious context. "Their very dubious General even tried to make it a Hindu-Muslim thing recently," Mr Chandrasekhar said, alluding to an inflammatory speech delivered by General Munir recently. 

"Pakistan has learned this time around there will be pain. There will be consequences that they will have to face, and I think that is the message in terms of trusting Pakistan. Nobody on the planet, not even the Pakistanis, trusts the Pakistani state. So there is no question of Indians trusting Pakistanis," Mr Chandrasekhar said. 

India Strikes Deep

According to Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai, India's Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), Operation Sindoor achieved all of its stated objectives. "We have thus far exercised immense restraint and our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory. However, any threat to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and safety of our citizens will be met with decisive force," Gen Ghai said in a briefing attended by senior officials from the Army, Air Force and Navy, last evening. 

According to Mr Chandrasekhar, Operation Sindoor represents a fundamental shift in India's strategic calculus. 

"What has happened this time around is that India has demonstrated that Pakistan and its Generals can do whatever is needed to distract their own people but there will be a severe cost imposed on them by the actions of India," he said. 

'New Red Line'

The Indian military claimed strikes were conducted against 11 separate Pakistani airfields, including facilities in Chelala, Jacobabad, Rafiqui, Murid, Chaklala, and Rahim Yar Khan. Air Marshal AK Bharti, briefing alongside Lt Gen Ghai, confirmed that Indian fighter aircraft had downed "a few" Pakistani planes, though exact numbers were not provided. 

"India has penetrated the defences, the air defences of Pakistan," Mr Chandrasekhar said. He pointed out that even advanced systems, reportedly supplied by China to Pakistan, failed to prevent India from striking targets deep inside Pakistani territory.

"These unprecedented levels of destruction that we have seen on Pakistani posts, the reach that India has demonstrated deep within Pakistan is certainly drawing a new red line," he said.

'Mad State'

Mr Chandrasekhar cautioned against any simplistic reading of Pakistan's strategic posture. 

"You know, three days ago at a public political programme in Kerala, someone said Pakistan is a wild animal, and I said, 'Don't insult wild animals.' Pakistan is not a wild animal. It is a mad state," he said.

Referencing Pakistan's checkered history of civil-military relations and what he described as "mad generals," he cited former President Pervez Musharraf's Kargil misadventure as a precedent for irrational behaviour from within Pakistan's military command.

"General Munir is certainly walking in the traditions of mad generals, megalomaniacs," he said. However, Mr Chandrasekhar also noted that "even the maddest of them have understood" the consequences of provoking India now.

Tech Superiority

India, over the past decade, has invested heavily in strategic capabilities ranging from surveillance and precision targeting systems to integrated air defence networks. Mr Chandrasekhar said that India's technological progress, particularly in imaging and sensors, has widened the military asymmetry with Pakistan. 

"They can buy, they can steal, they can do whatever they want with Chinese technology, but what India has developed... is absolutely unprecedented," he told NDTV. 

According to official figures released by the Indian Army, 35-40 Pakistani military personnel were killed during the operation. Over 100 terrorists, including individuals linked to past high-profile attacks such as the 1999 IC-814 hijacking and the 2019 Pulwama bombing, were eliminated.
 

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