As reports emerge that the Indian Army shelled terror camps and in parts of Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK) on Sunday, killing dozens of terrorists, Congress leader Akhilesh Prasad Singh told ANI that the BJP had a pattern of conducting surgical strikes just before a major election.
Singh said, “Under Modi ji’s government, whenever there’s election in a big state, pattern of surgical strike is formed.”
He added that “Now, politics will be done on surgical strike to divert attention from real issues.”
Singh is a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) with the Congress. During the UPA administration, he represented the Motihari constituency in Bihar and served as the Union Minister of State, Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution.
His statement came after India retaliated to continuous Pakistan ceasefire violations along the LoC, that led to the deaths of two Indian Army soldiers in the Tangdhar sector, Havildar Padam Bahadur Shrestha and Rifleman Gamil Kumar Shrestha.
The Pakistani firing also killed one civilian and injured four.
Indian officials say Pakistan Rangers started firing small arms and mortars in the Manyari-Chorgali area at 7:45 pm on Saturday, drawing retaliation from the Border Security Force (BSF).
One civilian was killed and three injured as a result of Pakistani firing in the Tangdhar sector of Kupwara district, PTI cited police as saying.
A local, Syed Ali, suffered burn injuries after he tried to put out a fire that started in his house after a mortar shell struck it. Border residents staged protests against Pakistan afterwards, saying their village had been repeatedly targeted over the last one month. The protesters say Syed had lost one of his buffaloes to firing a few days back and that now with the loss of his house, he had suffered a loss worth lakhs of rupees.
Indian revenue officials inspected the scene and stated that the victims would be “adequately compensated as per the norms.”
The BSF retaliated to Pakistan firing on Sunday, targeting four terror camps and several Pakistani military positions. Indian official sources at first said that five Pakistani Army men were killed in the retaliatory firing, while two Indian Army personnel lost their lives.
Army chief Bipin Rawat later told ANI that between 6-10 Pakistani soldiers and “far more terrorists “ were killed by the Indian attacks.
Rawat issued a statement on the Indian response, “Last evening an attempt was made in Tangdhar to infiltrate terrorists, we retaliated, Pak carried out attack firing at our post in which we did suffer, but before they could attempt the infiltration.”
“It was decided that we target that terror camps across. We had the coordinates of these camps. We have caused severe damage to terrorists infrastructure across,” he said.
Rawat said that India used artillery guns to target Pakistani terror camps, with a large increase in the number of ceasefire violations from Pakistan taking place since Article 370 was abrogated in August.
