Indian Navy will lead New Delhi’s response to any future Pakistani aggression: Singh

NEW DELHI: India will use the firepower of its navy in response to any future aggression by Pakistan, India’s defence minister said on Friday, weeks after the fiercest fighting in decades between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

Relations between India and Pakistan are tense after four days of fighting this month, which involved fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery before a ceasefire was announced.

“If Pakistan resorts to anything evil or unethical, it will, this time, face the firepower and ire of the Indian Navy,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant off the coast of the western Indian state of Goa.

A spokesperson for Pakistan’s military referred Reuters to a May 12 statement, which said there would be a “comprehensive and decisive” response whenever Pakistan’s sovereignty was “threatened and territorial integrity violated”.

The latest fighting erupted after 26 people, mostly Indian tourists, were killed in an April 22 attack in Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan territory claimed by both nations. New Delhi blamed the attack on “terrorists” backed by Pakistan, which denied the charge.

A ceasefire took effect on May 10 and a top Pakistani military official told Reuters on Friday that both countries were close to reducing their troop build-up along their border to pre-conflict levels.

The Indian Navy has said it deployed its carrier battle group, submarines and other aviation assets in the northern Arabian Sea within 96 hours of the April 22 attack.

Defence Minister Singh said ‘Operation Sindoor’, under which India launched the strikes on Pakistan, was paused, but not yet over.

“We stopped our military actions on our own terms. Our forces had not even started showing their might,” he said.