NEW DELHI: India has to be prepared for escalation in the situation along the Line of Control with Pakistan, said Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Wednesday, even as the Pakistan army continues to attempt BAT (border action team) operations as well as indulge in heavy cross-border firing after J&K’s special status was abrogated in August.

"The situation along the LoC can escalate any time. We have to be prepared for the spiraling of the escalatory matrix," said General Rawat. The Army is maintaining a high level of operational readiness, with detailed plans chalked out to cater for different contingencies.

The statement comes barely a couple of days after the Army thwarted yet another BAT operation by the Pakistan Army in the Sunderbani sector along the LoC but lost a soldier while another one was injured in the heavy exchange of firing on Monday. "Pakistan is attempting BAT actions almost every third day. We keep on foiling them and taking retaliatory action,” said a source.

This has been a particularly violent year along the 778-km LoC, with as many as 2,900 ceasefire violations (CFVs) also being recorded till now to break all annual records since 2003. The number of CFVs was 971 in 2017 and 1,629 in 2018.

The intensity of the cross-border firings, with both sides often deploying heavy mortars, anti-tank guided missiles and artillery guns, first registered a major spike after IAF fighters conducted the pre-dawn air strikes on the major Jaish-e-Mohammed facility at Balakot in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan on February 26.

Pakistan had retaliated on February 27 by sending a “strike package” of 24 fighters, including F-16s, JF-17s and Mirage-5 attack jets, to target Indian military installations in the Nowshera sector across the LoC, which included a brigade headquarters and an ammunition dump.

Though the IAF had foiled the attempt, it lost the MiG-21 being flown by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman. “If the Pakistani fighters had managed to hit an important target like an ammunition dump, we would have definitely taken strong retaliatory action. We were prepared for escalation,” said the source.



In Video: Situation along LoC can escalate any time, we are prepared, says Army Chief Bipin Rawat