https://www.quora.com/What-surgical-strikes-happened-during-the-Congress-rule
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.[1]
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 Subedaar 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-marshaled, 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.[2]
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.[3]