Congress confusing surgical strike with local retaliatory action, says expert

Defence Expert Brigadier (Retired) Anil Gupta backed Parrikar's statement on surgical strikes

Backing Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's statement that no surgical strike was conducted in the past, defence expert Brigadier (Retired) Anil Gupta on Thursday said the Congress Party is confusing a surgical strike with local retaliatory action.

"What the Congress is claiming was retaliatory actions taken by local units and formations as and when there was some action from Pakistan and to counter that. Those could be easily termed as 'badla', but what was done now is surgical strikes, which was a well planned and well-coordinated operation over a frontage of 250 kilometres that was never done before," Gupta told ANI.

"I tend to agree with the Defence Minister because the Congress and the other parties are confused between surgical strikes and local retaliatory actions," he said.

"The present surgical strikes, at the scale at which they have been conducted, the involvement of the national government to the army headquarters and the command and other formations, such a large scale operation has never been done before." he added.