New Delhi:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is chairing a high-level meet at his Delhi residence – to review the ongoing fallout of last week’s Pahalgam terror attack and the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh – who last week vowed a “strong response” to the attack and repeated the PM’s assurance, that India will punish the terrorists and their handlers – was present, as were National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan.
The meeting comes a day before the PM-led Cabinet Committee on Security, the government’s highest decision-making body on national security, is to meet for a second time in seven days.
Sources said that meet will be followed by a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, which is also led by the Prime Minister and includes the Road Transport Minister, the Health Minister, the Agriculture Minister, and the Railways Minister, among others, in addition to the five-member CCS.
The CCS consists of Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, in addition to the Prime Minister and Defence Minister.
Sources further said that after the CCS and CCPA, the Economic Affairs Committee will also meet.
The sequence of high-profile meetings underlines the intensity of planning going into India’s response to both the Pahalgam attack and Pakistan’s continued support of cross-border terrorism.
Plan So Far: Cancel Visas, Stop Water
In the first round of responses Delhi revoked visas for Pakistan nationals, except for Pak Hindus and those with long-term stay approvals. The government had also revoked medical visas.
All notified visas issued to Pak nationals expired on Sunday, April 27, leading to a long line of Pakistani citizens at border crossings, including the famous Attari-Wagah checkpoint.
Since Thursday, when the revocation order was first issued, nearly 1,000 Pak nationals have left India, with Home Minister Amit Shah personally asking chief ministers to enforce the order.
READ | Identify All Pakistanis In India, Send Them Back: Amit Shah To CMs
As part of further diplomatic restrictions on Pakistan, India had also suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, a critical water-sharing deal that gives Pak nearly 85 per cent of its supply.
The suspension of the IWT, signed in 1960, was met with fury by Pakistan, which called it “an act of war“. Islamabad has since also revoked all visas for Indian nationals and ejected hundreds.
Pahalgam Terror Attack
Twenty-six people were killed in the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22.
The Resistance Front, an offshoot of banned, Pak-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, has claimed responsibility, but the five terrorists who carried out the attack remain at large.
A massive manhunt is underway to track them down.
Indian security agencies have evidence of Pak’s involvement in the attack; last week this material was shown to foreign diplomats from the United States, Russia, China, Japan, and major European nations.
The Prime Minister, who was in Saudi Arabia at the time of the attack, and rushed back 24 hours later, his plane avoiding Pak airspace, has said terror’s evil agenda won’t be allowed to win.
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