On the second anniversary of surgical strike, PM Narendra Modi has inaugurated ‘ParakramParv’ at the Jodhpur Military Station organized by the Konark Corps. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated an exhibition organized at the Indian Gate Lawns. In Jalandhar, Lt General Dushyant Singh, the commander of 11 corps, inaugurated the event. The 3-day event was organized in 51 cities from 28th to 30th of September 2018, where people got the opportunity to see the weapons used in the cross operation, short films, documentaries and also the letters written by children to the Indian Army. The event projected a message to the society that progress and development are ensured only if borders are fully secure and inspired the youth to join the armed forces.
The opposition party, addressing the media on 28th September 2018, for a surgical strike pronounced that it was not a great step taken by BJP, as there had been several strikes in the past as well, the Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said.
In an interview, Lt. General (retd) Deependra Singh Hooda, who planned and oversaw the execution of the operation as the General Officer Commanding (GoC) of the Northern Command said that it was done on a larger scale and happened in the past was never officially accepted.
To mark this occasion as success, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “We proved them (terrorists) that it (their acts) shall not go unpunished.”
Concurrently, the ruling party has released a video on its Twitter account “salute the unmatched valour of brave soldiers who conducted surgical strikes”. And also on the second anniversary of cross-border operation, the teaser of the upcoming movie ‘URI’ is out. The movie is based on the Uri attack in 2016.
In contrary to this, the opposition party politicized the BJP, adding that it is a tool to gain the political power for the General Assembly Election 2019.
Similarly, the opposition party has raised the question on Indian Army at the time of surgical strike too in 2016 and called Indian Army ‘Gundas’.
But this was not the case of a surgical strike. The surgical strike has gained importance in India as Pakistan repeatedly use these weapons on Indian Armed Forces,The surgical strike was carried out to eliminate terrorists and destroy terror launch pads across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. It was the revenge taken by the Indian army for Uri attack, Pathankot, Burhan Wani.
On the night of the ‘surgical strike’, the live images of the attacks on terrorist camps rolled out on a large screen in the Udhampur operations room.
As the reports don’t show the actual data, both the countries revealed different data of militant troops who had been died in the surgical strike.
But Pakistan had a psychological pressure, Lt. General (retd) Deependra Singh Hooda was quoted saying. He also said, “We were listening to their radio conversation after the strikes and there was a fair amount of panic on the other side. They cancelled their leaves, more high alerts were sounded, and warned each other as ‘these guys may come across again’.
Due to the attack, India also cancelled the participation in the 19th SARRC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Summit being held on November 2016, in Islamabad, Pakistan.
Recently the cricket player Imran Khan took an oath as the Prime Minister in Pakistan. It was a trick of PM Imran Khan to hold a talk in New York. He called PM Narendra Modi to hold talks on the UN General Assembly and it was called off on 21st September after the announcement of meeting so as to talk on UN resolution of 1948.
Ruchika Agarwal
jalore.agarwalruchika@gmail.com
