New Delhi: The Nagrota attack, which claimed the lives of seven soldiers including two Majors, is a signal from the Pakistani establishment that their policy of proxy war against India will continue despite change of person helming their army, eminent security analysts said today.
"It is a signal that even if the chief at the top changes, national policies will remain the same," said Lt Gen (Retd) Vinod Bhatia, former Director General of Military Operations.
The attack came days ahead of the Heart of Asia Summit on Afghanistan in Amritsar on December 2-3 and the day Qamar Javed Bajwa took over as the new chief of Pakistan army replacing explicitly anti-India Raheel Sharif.
"If you see the pattern of all previous major attacks, you will find that it is either preceded or followed by a diplomatic initiative between both the countries," Lt Gen Bhatia said.
He admitted that the Indian army needs to beef up security of its camps and attributed the lack of it to inadequate resources.
Lt Gen (Retd) H S Panag, a former Northern Army Commander, said Pakistan has a very clear target which is India.
"For them, India is a natural enemy which has, according to it, wrongly deprived them their right over Kashmir," Lt Gen Panag told PTI.
He said that despite sporadic voices of peace that one hears from Pakistan, the army, political establishment and the public are on one page when it comes to what actions that are needed to be taken against India.
He said unlike Pakistan, India does not have a clear strategy against its neighbour.
Lt Gen Panag said initially after the surgical cross LoC strike it was felt that there is a new strategy in place but "subsequent chest thumping showed it was a standalone incident
Meant more for the domestic audience".
He said India should up his covert strategy and even plan out hits on people like Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azar, chiefs of terror groups LeT and JeM respectively, besides others.
"We meander from one strategy or the other. There is no one clear policy," he said.
The talk about the number of casualties in Pakistan is just "exaggerated nonsense," he said, calling for a "harder policy" towards that country.
Brigadier (Retd) Gurmeet Kanwal, Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), stressed on the need to enhance perimeter security at military facilities which he felt was "grossly inadequate".
However, he did not see any link between the Nagrota attack and the change of guard in Pakistani army and said assaults of such nature are planned in advance.
