MEA trashes Pakistan paper's report on surgical strikes

Calls the report concocted and baseless

India on Friday termed as "concocted and baseless" a report in Pakistani media that Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in a meeting with the German ambassador in New Delhi had admitted that no surgical strikes were conducted by the Indian Army. 

Strongly reacting to the story in Pakistan's The News International, titled 'Indian FS admits surgical strikes was a bluff', External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said it is "completely concocted and baseless".

The German Ambassador, Martin Ney, was in the group of foreign envoys briefed by the foreign secretary on September 29 on the surgical strikes. They have had no further conversation since on this subject, Swarup said. 

In its report on Friday, The News International, citing a source, claimed that "the Indian Foreign Secretary has categorically denied and said that there was no 'surgical strike' undertaken by Indian Army" in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The government on September 29 had announced that the Indian army had conducted successful surgical strikes against terrorist launchpads across the Line of Control, which started on the intervening night of September 28 and 29. 

According to media reports, Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba suffered the maximum damage in the surgical strikes, with assessment reports of the Pakistani army's radio intercepts indicating that around 20 of its militants were killed.

Pakistan was quick to deny that any such strikes had occurred and had only admitted that two Pakistani soldiers had been killed in cross-border firing during the night of September 28.  

Describing the surgical strikes as "drama" and a "global joke", the Pakistani publication claimed that the "startling information" was shared by the German authorities during a recent official meeting with Pakistan Embassy officials in Berlin.