Pulwama suicide attack is getting bigger with anger simmering across India. Where will it end? 
The BJP led NDA government cannot get away with cosmetic measures like withdrawing Most Favoured Nation status from Pakistan, gunning down the perpetrators of the suicide attack in 100 hours, stripping the security of Hurriyat and other Pak apologists or stopping Indian share of water flowing to Pakistan from River Ravi. It will have to do something big. 
By giving free hand to the army and security forces four times from the podium, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has raised the pitch with people starting believing ‘it will be now or never’. The nation is in real war mood. If the BJP dithers, it will have consequences; they will lose face; they will suffer from credibility crisis, which they can’t afford with general elections round the corner. 
BJP has brought itself in real crisis. Something will have to be done to cool down tempers because people want Pakistan to be crushed and Paki apologists to be muted. BJP will have to move fast but the fact is wars are not fought at whims. These need proper strategy, which is time consuming. However, the public patience is waning.
So what are the options, other than immediate war? 
India will have to emulate USA which went whole-hog against 9/11 Twin Towers perpetrator Osama bin Laden and killed him in his Pakistan rat hole of Abbottabad even without giving a hint to Islamabad. The then Secretary of State Henry Clinton had thundered immediately after the major kill, “The United States had made it clear from the very moment we were attacked (9/11) that we would go after those who had attacked us… Bin Laden was our primary target. The President made a gutsy decision. We were very pleased that the operation succeeded. And we’ve made it clear to people around the world that if we locate someone who has been part of the Al Qaeda leadership, then you get him or we will get him.”
This is the resolution of a nation nailed by the monster of terrorism. It is not that Indians could not do similar operation against wanted global terrorist Hafiz Sayeed, fugitive Dawood Ibrahim or the Pulwama carnage perpetrator Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Azhar Masood.
Soon after the successful US operation in Abbottabad, the then Indian Air Force Chief, Air Marshal P V Naik had asserted that India had the capability to take out the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror strike in the manner the US did by eliminating Al Qaeda chief. The Indian Army had strengthened the string with the then Army Chief General V K Singh saying: “I categorically want to say that if we get the chance, Indian forces’ three units (Army, Air Force and Navy) are capable of doing such tasks (like American Navy Seal did in Pakistan, who killed cataclysmic terror, Osama bin Laden.”
Incidentally, Gen V. K Singh is now a Minister of State for Extenal Affairs in Narendra Modi government. His advice, together with veterans from all the defence services and other security experts should have been sought four and half years ago to devise a strategy to deal with Pak sponsored terrorism, which is not only bleeding Jammu and Kashmir but the entire nation. It is not too late even now when the NDA government is wrapping up its five-year term. 
If Rahul Gandhi can requisition the services of 2016 Surgical Strike hero and architect Lt Gen D S Hooda to head a Congress task force on national security for preparing a vision paper for the country, why can’t the BJP? Gen Hooda is the same person whose heroic feat had been questioned by the Congress and Rahul Gandhi.
India must think this option very seriously.
Secondly, New Delhi will have to mute the Pak apologists, who leave no opportunity to embarrass the country. Their latest ‘anthem’ has been the demand for handing over last remains of hanged Afzal Guru to his family, perhaps to make a mausoleum for eulogising terror. They should be told tersely how the US refused to grant even two yards of soil anywhere across the world to let Osama rest. On the contrary, Guru was given a funeral despite being part of the mentors who attacked the temple of Indian democracy.

Courtesy:State Times, Feb 22,2019