Operation Safed Sagar

Because of the extreme winter weather in Kashmir, it was common practice for the Indian and Pakistan Army to abandon forward posts and reoccupy them in the spring.

[2] By the second week of May, an ambush on an Indian army patrol acting on a tip-off by a local shepherd in the Batalik sector led to the exposure of the infiltration.

However, because of the nature of the terrain, division and corps operations could not be mounted; the scale of most fighting was at the regimental or battalion level.

The intruders were found to be well entrenched and while artillery attacks had produced results in certain areas, more remote ones needed the help of the air force.

To avoid the escalation, the Government of India (GoI) cleared only limited use of Air Power on May 25, more than three weeks after first reports, with the instructions that IAF fighter jets will remain within Indian territory to launch attack on intruder's position within Indian territory and IAF was not permitted to cross the Line of Control under any circumstance.