Immediately after the Pulwama suicide attack on 14 February 2019, in which a young Kashmiri lad blew himself up killing 40 Indian para-military troops, a cacophony of accusations were hurled against Pakistan. In a purported phone call, the caller claiming to be a representative of the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) - an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation - was said to have owned up the bombing. Calls for revenge grew by the hour, and it was not long before the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi allegedly discovered incriminating links ana vowed tc teach Pakistan a lesson. It seemed that Modi saw punitive action against Pakistan as a key to a landslide victory in the upcoming elections and was, thus, completely blinded to the dangers of escalation of hostilities between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. In all likelihood, Modi also believed - or was made to believe - that Pakistan did not have the gumption to take on the might and stamina of the Indian military, seemingly buttressed by its madcap media and the rightist supporters.
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