India is to begin conducting security drills, involving tens of thousands of civil defence personnel across large parts of the country, as fears grow of a military conflict with nuclear rival Pakistan following last month’s terrorist attack in the disputed Kashmir region, which killed 26 tourists.
The drills are scheduled to begin on Wednesday at 244 locations, many of them adjoining India’s western border with Pakistan and including the capital New Delhi, and are to continue until Friday, mirroring those executed countrywide during the third India-Pakistan war in 1971, officials said.
Supervised by the federal home ministry, the drills will determine the functionality of air-raid warning sirens, firefighting services and “blackout” procedures as protection against aerial attacks.
As fear of hostilities between the neighbours escalates, after Indian prime minister Narendra Modi blamed Pakistan for “sponsoring” the April 22nd Kashmir killings and vowed “unparalleled” retribution, the planned drills will also include instructing citizens in safeguarding their neighbourhoods against enemy incursions and in camouflaging buildings and installations.
Involving large numbers of Home Guard, National Cadet Corps and National Disaster Response Force personnel, the exercises will also involve digging protective trenches and simulating casualty evacuation measures.
Officials have warned locals in the designated drill areas of possible short-term power cuts, loud sirens and restricted access to public areas. They cautioned that traffic would be temporarily diverted in many towns and cities, but sought to assure concerned locals that these were all part of a “controlled and monitored exercise” in anticipation of possible war.
Pakistan has denied any involvement in Kashmir’s terrorist killings and, in turn, claimed that it had intelligence of an impending attack by India’s military.
Its information minister, Attaullah Tarar, told reporters in Islamabad recently that India planned on attacking Pakistan on “false pretexts”, and that any “military adventurism” by it would be countered “assuredly and decisively”.
[ What to know about the tensions between India and Pakistan over KashmirOpens in new window ]
He said there was no communication channel open with India to prevent conflict, although there were reports in Delhi that the countries’ director generals of military operations had spoken to each other late last week via a long-established “hot line”, but it was not known what was discussed.
In the meantime, the Indian and Pakistani armies continued their exchange of artillery and small-arms fire along large sections of the disputed 740km line of control that forms the de facto border in Kashmir, which is divided between the neighbours but claimed in totality by both.
The two air forces and navies also persisted with deploying for war in the guise of conducting exercises, and both militaries and defence establishments continued with testing their missile systems and other armaments in a bid to threaten and intimidate the other side.
The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought three of their four wars since independence in 1947 over Kashmir, and India has accused Pakistan of backing the Muslim insurgency that erupted in the region in 1989 and has claimed more than 45,000 lives.
