SURGICAL STRIKE BEFORE PRESENT PM
ANOTHER CONGRESS LIE
SARASIJ MAJUMDER
On 5th May 2019 a former Major of ‘Romeo Force’, one of the
Counter Insurgency Forces (CIF) stationed at Kashmir, went on social media to
share his thoughts on the 6 surgical strikes claimed by Congress.
This is what Major Sudeep Singh had to say:
When I opened yesterday’s newspaper, I found a smiling
picture of our former PM Manmohan Singh with the caption - “Surgical strikes
had happened in our time as well”. In today’s newspaper I saw Rajiv Shukla
sporting the same smile and even listing out the dates and places of the
surgical strikes.
This made me recall an old story.
When I was newly commissioned in the army, then as per the
tradition I was made to tour all posts of the battalion. One such post was
where our bunkers would stand eye-to-eye with the enemy. You could only walk to
the post at night. On reaching there I fell asleep due to exhaustion.
Next
morning, I woke up to a surprising sight. While our men were dressed up and on
guard within the bunker, a Pakistani Subedar was nonchalantly brushing his
teeth out in the open and spitting the water in our direction!
I
asked him - “The situation has heated up but you don’t seem to worry?”
He
replied - “Yes it has, but after all, we will be the ones to fire the first
bullet.”
I
retorted - “Why? Can’t we make the first strike?”
The
Pak soldier responded - “No. Because if you do that you’ll be
court-martialed, but if I do that then I’ll be awarded medals.”
My army friends will know what I am talking about.
Good that you (Congress) clarified that surgical strikes
had happened in your time as well. A more apt term would have been
‘cross-border strikes’. Let me tell you without any inhibition that the
surgical strikes were not done by you, but done in spite of you!
We did those strikes even when Government had snatched
away our right to send a strong response to our enemies. Even when our hands
were tied. Whenever we complained that the enemy is audaciously crossing the
borders, attacking our battalions, beheading our soldiers and taking the heads
with them… and asked - can we avenge the deaths of our friends who were dining
with us until yesterday?
We got the same reply - “No such orders from higher
authorities”. After such replies and in our frustration, we took the risky path
of carrying out those ‘surgical strikes’ by ourselves.
I would request young determined lawyers or journalists
to get to the bottom of these claims by Congress and find the truth -
Did the UPA Government support the army and sanction those strikes?
Or did they reprimand and punish them for giving the enemy a befitting reply?
I felt sad after reading the news and hence decided to
share my two cents on it.
You can access his video message (in Hindi) on
Facebook in the footnote link below.
In addition to this, three former Chief of Army Staff
(COAS) have gone on record to claim that no surgical strikes were carried
out or requested or sanctioned by political leadership before 2016.
Two of these COAS commanded the Indian Army in the period 2010 - 2014. Congress has claimed five strikes in this period!
To summarize everything that I’ve seen, read and heard:
- Indian
Army has carried out several cross-border operations in the past but they
always met with friction from higher authorities under previous
governments. They felt that their hands were tied. Moreover, none of those
operations seem to be ‘surgical’ in nature.
- The
term ‘surgical strike’ refers to a specific type of cross-border
operation which is new in Indian context and has been popularly carried
out by Israel and USA in the past.
- This
confusion of terminology is important. When some army men talk about
previous strikes, they are not necessarily talking about the surgical ones
but cross-border operations in general.
- While
I’ve come across no army man who doubted the authenticity of SURGICAL
STRIKES under PRESENT BJP GOVERNMENT, many ex-army men have questioned the
authenticity or intention of Congress’ claims of surgical strikes in their
times. And this speaks a lot.
REFERENCES:_
Congress Lists 6 Surgical Strikes During Its Tenure, Returns
BJP Barbs
Disclaimer:-
Information collected, copied are shared for awareness only. Not for Business.
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