NEW DELHI, May 3: India’s military strike force backed by aircraft was practicing lightning attacks aimed at gauging the effectiveness of its 2004 battle doctrine of ‘slicing’ Pakistan in half in the event of an actual war, officials said on Wednesday.

“The manoeuvres are being held in stages and they will culminate on May 19 in a theatre of 10 to 15 square kilometres,” Indian army spokesman Col S.K. Sakuja said in New Delhi.

The mock battles, codenamed Sangha Shakti (Joint Power), involve more than 40,000 soldiers from India’’s Strike Corps II which accounts for almost 50 per cent of the million-plus army’s cross-border strike capability, Col Sakuja said.

He said the three-week exercises were being conducted near Pakistan’s borders in the Punjab state’s Jullandhar district.

Military commanders said India had alerted Islamabad in advance about the exercises as part of a bilateral military accord.

The spokesman said a “mixed complement” of transport and strike aircraft of the Indian Air Force was backing Sangha Shakti, one of the biggest war games in recent years on Pakistan’s militerised borders.— AFP