The Defence Ministry on Friday activated 14 of 32 infantry battalions of the Territorial Army – India’s auxiliary military force – for deployment across the country till 2028.

The Territorial Army is being called out for ‘heightened readiness and strategic reinforcement’, sources told NDTV. The order, from the ministry’s Department of Military Affairs, comes amid rapidly escalating military tension between India and Pakistan over the Pahalgam terror attack.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, India has around 14.75 lakh active military personnel and over 16 lakh in the paramilitary forces. Pak, meanwhile, has less than seven lakh military personnel on active deployment and a paramilitary force of 2.9 lakh.

India also has more fixed-wing aircraft, including fighter jets, as well as more helicopters, armoured fighting vehicles, and pieces of artillery, the SIPRI report said. The game of ‘top trumps’ involving India and Pak’s military assets plays out as the two nuclear powers edge closer to all-out war, fuelled by decades-long tension over border conflicts.

Over the last 72 hours India has repulsed two waves of drone and missile attacks by Pak and shot down enemy fighter jets, reinforcing offensive and defensive superiority over the enemy. Each wave was shot down thanks to India’s advanced air defence network, which includes an integrated counter-unmanned aerial system, or C-UAS, and interceptor systems like the Russian-made S-400 Triumf and the indigenously developed Akash missiles.

The Indian military earlier also launched precision strikes – Operation Sindoor – on nine terror camps in Pak and Pak-occupied Kashmir, killing over 100 terrorists and dismantling terror infrastructure used to launch past attacks on India, including in Pulwama in 2019.

Operation Sindoor – a tri-services military effort, the first since the 1971 war with Pakistan – was India’s first military response to the Pahalgam attack in which terrorists killed 26 people. India has said it has proof of Pakistan’s involvement in Pahalgam and other terror attacks, both targeting its territory and people and those of other nations, like the 2005 London bombings.

Pak has denied India’s charge and insisted on an independent international inquiry. However, Islamabad’s claims were ripped apart by India in a press briefing Thursday evening, in which Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri detailed that country’s continuing support of terrorism.