Amid heightened India-Pakistan tensions after the Pulwama attack, Pakistani Army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa paid a visit to the Line of Control on Friday, and warned New Delhi against aggression saying any misadventure would be paid back in the same coin.
The Pakistan Army too warned India against "messing" with Pakistan.
Bajwa visited the LoC to review the state of preparedness and morale of the troops, a day after the National Security Committee authorised the armed forces to respond to any Indian aggression with full force. Bajwa's visit signalled the highest level of preparedness, Dawn reported.
Speaking to the troops on the frontlines in Chirikot and Bagsar sectors, Bajwa said: “Pakistan is a peace-loving country but we will not be intimidated or coerced. Any aggression or misadventure shall be paid back in the same coin”.
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Meanwhile, military spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, while addressing a press conference at the Inter-Services Public Relations office, said in case India started aggression against Pakistan it would be "surprised" by the level of response it would get from the Pakistani armed forces.
“We do not wish to go to war. But please be assured, should you initiate any aggression, you shall never be able to surprise us. We shall, for sure, surprise you,” the chief military spokesperson, Major General Asif Ghafoor, said during an unusual media briefing.
Talking of deployment at forward locations, Ghafoor said Pakistani troops “shall have superior force ratio at decisive points”. He cautioned the Indian army against underestimating Pakistani defence, saying: “Never think that we shall fall short of capacity. … We have the ways and means for the end state.”
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He said Pakistani armed forces were “ready to respond to full spectrum threat” and in the event of Indian aggression, “shall dominate the escalation ladder”.
His message for the Indian side was “don’t mess with Pakistan”.
He said that Pakistan’s military capabilities were India-specific and the troops were battle-hardened after a long fight against terrorism.
In a related development, Maj Gen Ghafoor, sharing an update on the investigation against former Inter-Services Intelligence chief retired Lt Gen Asad Durrani, said that he had been found guilty of violating the Military Code of Conduct and accordingly punished.
“His pension has been stopped immediately and we are working with the Ministry of Interior over whether or not to keep him on Exit Control List,” he said.
Gen Durrani had collaborated with former Indian top spy A.S. Dulat in a book project. The book titled ‘The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI, and the Illusion of Peace’ contains conversations between Gen Durrani and Dulat mediated by an Indian journalist. The two former spies had in the book touched upon some of thorny issues that kept Pak-India ties strained for decades, at times pushing them to the brink of war. These issues included terrorism, particularly the Mumbai attack, Kashmir, spy wars and the influence of defence bureaucracies in the two neighbouring countries.
India-Pakistan relations have nosedived in the aftermath of the February 14 terror attack in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, in which 40 Indian paramilitary personnel were blown up in a terror attack. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad has taken responsibility for it. India has blamed Pakistan for sheltering the terror group that has been behind several terror strikes in India.
