New Delhi: Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi on Wednesday said that the foundation for ‘Operation Sindoor’ was laid in 2016 “soon after Pakistan sponsored terrorists attacked an Army camp near Line of Control (LoC) at Uri” in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
Speaking at the unveiling of the book — “Civil Military Fusion as a Metric of National Power and Comprehensive Security” and “Portraits of Valour: Timeless Military Art”, a coffee table book by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the Army chief, according to the news agency KNO, said, “Higher command course always talks about ‘why’. Three things which I picked up from him [Lt Gen Raj Shukla (Retd.)] at that point in time…The second thing was the foundation for Operation Sindoor. At that time (in 2016) Uri had happened and he conducted a detailed discussion and various options, how should we go about this situation which comes in future.”
Referring to ‘Operation Sindoor’ that was launched to avenge April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that left 26 civilians dead, the Army chief said that when the situation was discussed with him it was nothing new as when the Uri attack had happened all the options were discussed to deal with the situations that could arise in future. “So, I must concede very frankly, when this situation came to me, it was a very normal thing for me because I had already seen this earlier.”
Pertinently, earlier this month the Army chief had issued a warning to Pakistan. “If the neighbouring country continues to support terrorism it will lose its geographical presence. If Pakistan wants to retain its place on the map, it must stop state-sponsored terrorism,” the Army chief had said speaking at an Army post in Rajasthan’s Anupgarh.
He had maintained that the Indian forces won’t show any restraint this time, hinting that a second version of ‘Operation Sindoor’ wouldn’t be far away if Islamabad refuses to mend its ways.
“This time we will not maintain the restraint that we had in Operation Sindoor 1.0. This time we will do something that will make Pakistan think whether it wants to retain its place in geography or not,” General Dwivedi had said. (KNO)
