India’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Upendra Dwivedi on Monday listed out lessons learnt from Operation Sindoor, the military operation against Pakistan-based terrorists, and highlighted how the action and capabilities of the armed forces gave a reality check to the hostile neighbour.
“Operation Sindoor was just a trailer which ended in 88 hours. We are prepared for any circumstances in future. If Pakistan gives a chance, we will teach it how to behave responsibly with a neighbouring nation,” General Dwivedi said while speaking at the ‘Chanakya Defence Dialogues’ event in New Delhi on Monday.
On lessons learnt from the operation, the General underlined three main points — integration between forces, ensuring proper supplies for a drawn-out battle, and ensuring decisions are taken at every level of the command chain.
“Whenever some operation happened we learn from it, this time too we learned things. One of the things we learned was that the decision we have very less time to take any decision, and take a decision at every level on time,” he said.
He stressed on intergration among the forces, “because today’s battles are multi-domain”.
“Just the army cannot fight a battle, everyone has to fight together,” he said, mentioning the air force and navy.
“We also cannot say how long a battle will last even today. This time we fought for 88 hours; next time it could be four months too or even four years. Looking at that, do we have enough supplies and weapons to fight that? If we do not have, then we need to prepare for that,” he added.
Talking about how India has “set a new normal” after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, he said, “When a country encourages state-sponsored terrorism, it becomes a matter of concern for India. India talks about progress. If someone creates obstacles in our course, then we will have to take some action against them. When we talk about the new normal, we have said that talks and terror can’t go together.”
He added, “All we are asking is to adopt a peaceful process, which we will cooperate with. Until then, we will treat terrorists and their sponsors alike.”
He further highlighted the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, saying that there has been a decline in terrorist incidents in the area following the abrogation of Article 370. “After this, political clarity has come,” he said.
Article 370 provided special status and rights to the then state of Jammu and Kashmir, which was bifurcated to re-form it into two UTs, the other being Ladakh. (ANI)
