Islamabad/New Delhi: Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa on Thursday denied that India carried out "surgical strikes" on Pakistan-occupied areas in September.
"Pakistan's armed forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India," the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) spokesperson Major Gen Asif Ghafoor quoted Gen Bajwa as saying.
Maj Gen Ghafoor tweeted that Gen Bajwa rejected the "self defeating claims" of Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat about “so-called surgical strikes" and its possible recurrence.
India had carried out the surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on September 29, targeting terrorists and destroying their training camps, 10 days after a terror attack on an army camp in Uri town of Jammu and Kashmir killed 19 Indian soldiers.
CNN-News18 had aired a sting operation on a police officer in PoK, who confirmed the surgical strikes. Under the impression that he was speaking to his superior IG Mushtaq, Ghulam Akbar, SP (Special Branch) of the Mirpur Range in PoK, revealed details about the strike. He further claimed that the bodies of terrorists were also removed by Pakistan’s military.
Ghulam Akbar had said that the Pakistani Army took away the dead bodies in ambulances, adding that they may have been buried in villages. Akbar had also claimed that five Pakistani Army men had died, contradicting Pakistan's claim that two soldiers died in cross-firing.
Gen Bipin Rawat, who took over as the 27th chief of the Indian Army on December 31, has said India will give a calibrated "hard" response to terror activities that will compel Pakistan to completely rethink its strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism.
"We will calibrate the response in a manner it hits them hard and compels them to think in the long run whether they need to completely rethink their strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism in our state," said Gen Rawat, who as the Vice Chief was actively involved in the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC.
(With agency inputs)
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