‘A new red line’: At Shangri-La Dialogue, CDS General Anil Chauhan’s ‘limit of tolerance’ warning to Pakistan

Top military officials from India and Pakistan exchanged warnings at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, billed as Asia’s premier defence forum, amid heightened tensions between the two sides following last month’s military confrontation.

The longstanding tensions between the two neighbours grabbed attention at the gathering of the top global defence forum held from Friday to Sunday, reported Channel News Asia on Sunday.

Pakistan-based terror group attacked tourists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, killing 26 people. Pakistan has denied involvement.

And just as these nations sit next to each other geographically, some of their top generals sat in neighbouring conference rooms inside the Shangri-La Singapore, taking part in simultaneous sessions late on Saturday afternoon on topics ranging from defence innovation solutions to regional crisis-management mechanisms.

India’s ‘red line’ warning to Pakistan

General Anil Chauhan, Chief of Defence Staff, talked about India drawing a new red line of intolerance against terror. Referring to Operation Sindoor, General Chauhan said, “What India has done, politically, they have drawn a new red line of intolerance against terror.”

“I hope, this particular operation, it’s basically lying in military domain, that should bring about some lessons for our adversary also, and hopefully they learn that this is a limit of India’s tolerance,” Gen Chauhan said.

“We have been subjected to this proxy war of terror for almost two decades and more, and we lost lot of people…we want to put an end to it,” he said.

Operation Sindoor was launched early on May 7 to destroy nine terror infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in retaliation to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that left 26 people dead.

All subsequent retaliations to Pakistani offensives were carried out under this operation. The four-day military conflict between India and Pakistan ended with an understanding on stopping the military actions on May 10.

Pakistan’s ‘damage, destruction’ response

General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of the Pakistan Armed Forces, warned of what could happen should another clash occur.

“The strategic stability with the lowering of this threshold to the dangerous levels if next time such a conflict occurs and the cities are targeted first and the borders become irrelevant… there could be a possibility that before the international community intervenes because of the restricted or constricted times window, the damage and destruction may have already taken place,” he said at the event.

General Mirza told the Channel in a wide-ranging interview that Pakistan is taking on terrorism on its soil and working to tackle cross-border terrorism from groups based in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

Mirza said terrorism has cost his country hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.

In the wake of the recent hostilities, both sides have moved from weapons to words, with India dispatching several delegations to visit more than 30 capitals across the world. A similar effort by Pakistan is set to start on June 2.

CDS Gen Chauhan on India’s military prowess

“India doesn’t depend on one nation for its defence needs,” said General Chauhan. “It’s a number of capabilities which were put together, and most of these capabilities were put to good effects,” he was quoted as saying.

General Mirza told the Channel that his country’s capabilities include weapons from China and many other places.

“I have military equipment from the US. I have military equipment from Turkiye. I have military equipment from Italy. I have military equipment from the UK,” he listed. “We have the equipment from all equipment-producing countries.”

The countries continue to maintain that the use of nuclear weapons was never on the table, with Pakistani officials, including General Mirza dismissing reports that Islamabad called a meeting of the National Command Authority, the body that oversees Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.