Army gives proof

​New Delhi: The Indian Army has given multiple videos and graphic evidence of its surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) last week to the government, asking it to take a final call on whether they should be made public, Union Minister Hansraj Ahir said on Wednesday, amid a growing chorus that evidence of the operation be made public.

The video evidence of the Army operation was announced just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a Cabinet Committee on Security meeting in New Delhi to discuss whether the details of the strikes should be revealed amid intense politics over the issue.

The meeting was briefed about the situation on the LoC and the International Border as well as the hinterland, sources said. Separately, Kiren Rijiju, also a MoS for Home, said everyone should have faith in the government and allow the Army to take its own call.

"The laid down procedure has been followed. The DGMO briefed (about the surgical strikes). It was not the Defence Minister nor the Prime Minister and not the Home Minister. It was the DGMO who briefed (the media). That was the right thing to do and they (Army) did it.

"There was a time when written documents were submitted. Now the times have changed. Now clips are given and the clips have been given," Ahir told reporters. "Have faith in the government and leave it to the Army," Rijiju told reporters when asked about the demand for release of proof of the surgical strikes by the Army.
As a number of Opposition parties, including the Congress and the AAP, demanded that the proof of the strikes must be made public, a report confirmed that the Army operation indeed took place by citing eyewitness across from across the LoC.

According to the eyewitnesses living across the LoC, bodies of those killed during the surgical strikes on September 29 were carried away in trucks for burials. The eyewitnesses have provided graphic details of the strikes along the LoC. In the night of September 28-29, Indian Army commandos had crossed over to the PoK and killed nearly 50 terrorists and destroyed at least seven launch pads.

The strikes happened 10 days after Pakistan-based terrorists stormed an Army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri sector and killed 19 Indian soldiers. However, Pakistan has repeatedly denied that the Indian Army crossed over to the territory controlled by it and even took a team of international journalists in a failed attempt to show the proof of its denial. Islamabad has also denied that groups operating on its soil had conducted the Uri attack.

A political slugfest erupted over the surgical strikes with Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam calling it "fake", provoking stinging criticism from BJP even as his own party said it "totally dissociates" from his remarks. As the government mulled options on the issue of release of the video footage of the surgical strikes, a debate raged with BJP leader Subramanian Swamy favouring putting out an edited version of the video on the operation while most experts spoke against it.

Rejecting the demand, the BJP attacked some Congress leaders and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal for raising questions over the strikes and accused them of giving a handle to Pakistan to advance its false propaganda.

The Congress, on its part, insisted that it never questioned the authenticity of the strikes but steered clear of the demand, including from within its own ranks, for the release of evidence, saying it would give appropriate advise in the best interest of national security if consulted by the government.