Navy gets 'combat-ready' as firing across LoC continues

In 'Mann ki Baat' broadcast, Modi vows "harshest" response to perpetrators and conspirators

- SATARUPA BHATTACHARJYA & ARCHIS MOHAN

Soldiers in India and Pakistan over the weekend exchanged fire across the Line of Control and the Indian Navy said on Sunday that its warships test-fired missiles in the Arabian Sea to "revalidate and demonstrate" its "readiness" for long-range precision "offensive" strikes.

The actions by the defence forces of the two neighbours contributed to the increasing tension in the subcontinent, anticipating an Indian "kinetic response" to the Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 people were killed, and New Delhi had pointed to "cross-border linkages" of the attack.

On Sunday, in his "Mann ki Baat" radio broadcast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said terrorists and their backers had carried out the Pahalgam attack to destroy Kashmir again because they did not like the return of peace and prosperity. He vowed the "harshest" response to the "perpetrators and conspirators", while the National Investigation Agency (NIA), India's pre-eminent anti-terror agency, formally took over the probe into the attack by registering a first information report in Jammu, following orders from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).