New Delhi: When Shubham Tripathi heard the news of India’s strikes against Pakistan in the early hours of 7 May, he said he felt a rush of emotion. The terror attack in Pahalgam last month had reopened old wounds. His brother, Pankaj Kumar Tripathi, was among the 40 paramilitary personnel killed in the 2019 Pulwama attack.
“India should strive to go deeper into Pakistan, so that they dare not mount attacks on us ever again,” said Tripathi, a businessman based in Gorakhpur.
He and family members of other Pulwama victims now demand more precise and consistent strikes on terror camps in Pakistan.
Jitendra Lamba, who lost his brother Rohitash Lamba, said one-off measures were unlikely to quell terrorist outfits in the long term.
“The Indian government should sustain strikes in Pakistan, and launch deadlier strikes against them. The Pakistani military works with terror outfits in, and it is important for us to consistently target terrorist posts so that terrorism doesn’t breed in the country,” he said.
India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ early Wednesday as retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attacks in Kashmir on 22 April, which claimed 26 civilian lives. The retaliatory strikes, targeting nine terrorist bases in Pakistan’s Punjab and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, came 12 days after the attack in Baisaran Valley, a popular tourist spot.
The casualties from the precise air strikes are still unclear. But Masood Azhar, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed, has claimed that he has lost 10 members of his family.
While Tripathi argues that the answer to ending terrorism in Pakistan is going to war, Lamba says this is not the solution.
“War is not a solution, but strikes definitely are. We should strive to strike Pakistan on a regular basis,” he said.
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Pulwama attacks
Rohitash Lamba’s photo is kept alongside the gods in the temple of Jitendra’s house. When Jitendra first saw the photograph of Himanchi Narwal helplessly sitting next to her husband’s dead body in Pahalgam, he teared up.
“One can only imagine the plight of parents who lost their newlywed son, a wife who lost her husband, a child who lost her father… but I can feel that pain. I have felt that pain,” he said.
On 14 February 2019, a deadly attack on a CRPF truck killed 40 jawans of the paramilitary force in Kashmir’s Pulwama district. India had responded to the Pulwama attacks with retaliatory strikes in Balakot on 26 February, targeting a terrorist training camp.
Tripathi, who continues to grieve his brother, Pankaj Kumar Tripathi, now wants an all-out war.
“If we don’t go to war even now, then nothing will ever be resolved,” he said. “We need to shut this terrorism business in Pakistan once and for all.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)