Decision to release information lies entirely with govt.: N.C. Vij on surgical strikes

Former army chief General (Retd.) N.C. Vij on Thursday said that the Indian Army should be kept out of politics, adding the government releases information according to its own judgment and whenever they deem appropriate.

The former army chief said that the army should be kept out of politics.

"We must understand clearly that what surgical strike is. Surgical strike is a military term used to denote an operation across the LoC or border against the targeted objective. The idea is to destroy it with minimum collateral damage. You can do it by air, you can do it by land or a combination of both. In this case, it has been done by land and air both," General (Retd.) Vij said.

"There are two parts now, one is an execution part and second is the decision part. For the decision part, obviously the government of the day will have to be given credit and for the execution part, obviously the armed forces, the military has to be given credit for that," he added.

The former army chief further said the effort especially in the last 15-20 years ever since the proxy war has been started by Pakistan has been to keep the LoC under total domination.

"It can be done in two ways- by operating along the LoC and secondly by going across it," he added.

General (Retd.) Vij further said it is for the government to put the information on a public platform.

"The decision is totally with them. They, in their better judgment, may have felt that the information should be kept under the table, they have done so. So, now to give credit to one or not give credit to the other. The army should be kept out of politics," he added.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar earlier claimed that there had been no surgical strikes conducted in the past, adding all such strikes were covert operations.

"Those actions can at best be called covert operations where action was taken first and the government informed later. But the September 29 strikes were a result of a government decision," he said.