India carried out three cross-border strikes in five years, won’t talk about third: Rajnath Singh
Addressing a public rally in Mangaluru, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that the Indian armed forces have carried out three cross border strikes in the last five years.
Singh however added that he will only talk about two of these “beyond the border” strikes and not divulge into the details of the third.
“Pichle paanch varsho mein, teen baar apni seema ke bahar jaa kar hum logon ne airstrike kar kaamyaabi haasil ki hai. Do ki jankari aap ko dunga, teesri ki nahi dunga. (In the last five years, we have done airstrikes three times by crossing the border. I will give you details of the two strikes but not about the third),” Rajnath was quoted as saying by ANI.
“One time you saw in Uri, terrorists who came from Pakistan killed 17 of our soldiers, who were sleeping at night in a cowardly attack. After that, our soldiers also decided. Whatever happened after that you know it very well, I need not tell….now you are seeing. The first attack happened. The second one was air strike… happened after Pulwama attack. I won’t give you information about the third one,” Singh said without elaborating.
Singh also said that India would become one of the top three nations in the world in the next 10 years. The country has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world in recent years, he said.
“America, Russia and China are now the top three powerful countries. India will join the league of top three by the year 2028,” he said.
On September 29, 2016, the Special Forces of the Indian Army had crossed the LoC and destroyed several terror launch pads in what came to be known as Surgical Strikes. The strike was conducted eleven days after the attack by Pakistan based terrorists on the Indian Army garrison in Uri of J&K in which India lost 19 soldiers.
The second attack that Singh mentioned was carried out last month. The air strikes on a Jaish-e-Mohammad camp in Pakistan’s Balakot on February 26 were carried out in retaliation to a suicide terrorist attack on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Kashmir’s Pulwama on February 14, which killed 40 soldiers.
