General Raheel Sharif says strikes will not be forgotten by Indians for generations, warns of escalating Kashmir dispute

NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s military leadership upped the ante in a war of words with India on Thursday, with army chief Gen Raheel Sharif saying any surgical strike by Pakistan would not be forgotten by Indians for generations to come.

PTI FILEIndia’s surgical strikes along the LoC in September were in response to an earlier attack on an army camp in Uri.

Air force chief Sohail Aman too warned India against escalating a dispute over Kashmir into full-scale war. The rhetoric by the military leadership came a day a flare-up of hostilities along the LoC following the killing of three Indian soldiers, and the mutilation of the body of one, on Tuesday. Pakistani authorities said 11 civilians and three soldiers were killed in shelling by Indian forces.

Sharif, who is on a farewell tour of army units before his retirement on November 29, was quoted by The Express Tribune as saying that “if Pakistan were to launch surgical strikes, India would not be able to forget it for generations to come”.

“India will be teaching its children about Pakistan’s surgical strike if the latter took such measures. Pakistani troops are capable of teaching Indian forces a lesson,” he said. Sharif ’s remarks, made while addressing a ‘jirga’ of tribal elders in the Khyber semi-autonomous region, were also an apparent riposte to the surgical strikes carried out by Indian troops along the LoC in September in retaliation for an attack on an army camp in Uri by Pakistan-based militants.

In Karachi, Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman said Pakistan’s armed forces were prepared for all contingencies. “We are not worried about India at all, it is better if they show some restraint,” he told reporters on the margins of a defence exhibition.

Meanwhile, India on Thursday said the Pakistan army was giving tacit support to terrorists who targeted an Indian patrol in Machil sector that killed three soldiers. The body of one of the soldiers was mutilated. In a demarche issued to Pakistan deputy high commissioner on Wednesday night, the government conveyed it strongly deplored the tacit support of Pakistan Army to armed terrorists that came from close to Pakistan Army posts on November 22, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

The government also protested the deliberate targeting by Pakistan Army of 18 villages along LoC, which resulted in a non-fatal casualty besides causing extensive damage to public and private property and displacement of civilian population, said Swarup.