Gen Roychowdhury hails India's surgical strikes

Former chief of Army staff Gen Shankar Roychowdhury today lauded the surgical strikes by India on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC).
"The surgical strikes which were conducted by the Indian Army via a heliborne raid were well done," he told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.
In response to the recent Uri attacks in Jammu and Kashmir by 'Pakistani' terrorists which left 19 Indian soldiers dead, the Army conducted the strikes late Wednesday night which lasted for more than four hours.
"The most important thing is that nobody knew about this. It is actually a heliborne raid," Roychowdhury said.

He said that these kinds of raids cannot happen overnight.
"Intelligence had to be gathered over a period of time," the former chief of Army staff said.
Asked whether the strike was an one-off affair, he said that India always followed a policy of "second strike".
"It was in response to the Uri attack that India conducted the surgical strikes. It is definitely not an invasion as the Indian Army crossed the LoC and not an international boundary," the former general added.