No Pak. soldier or civilian died in Balakot Says Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj
ier or civilian died in the air strike on a terror camp at Balakot in Pakistan in February, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said Thursday. “Our armed forces were told to target only Jaish-e- Mohammed which was behind the Pulwama terror attack and they did just that – destroyed their camp and returned,” the senior BJP leader said.
Addressing women BJP workers here, she said Indian military was given a “free hand” in the operation but was clearly told that no Pakistani civilian should be killed and also there be “not even a scratch” on the Pakistani army.
In a meeting with Bharatiya Janata Party workers in Ahmedabad on Thursday, Swaraj was quoted by a news agency as saying the airstrikes by India inside Pakistani territory on February 26 was an attack on a terror camp and did not harm “any Pakistani citizen or soldier.”The airstrikes were announced two weeks after JeM claimed responsibility for the suicide bomb attack on the convoy of CRPF that left over 40 dead.
Swaraj said the air strike was carried out in self- defence. “When we carried out the air strike, we had told the international community that we took the step only in self- defence,” she said.
India has officially claimed that “a very large number” of JeM militants were killed in the airstrikes, but has refrained from providing an actual number. Unofficially, BJP ministers and leaders claimed that over 300 terrorists had been killed, but there has been no evidence that such a large number of casualties were caused by the Indian Air Force action. Therefore, it was a surprise when Swaraj was quoted as claiming that no Pakistani “citizens” had been killed, since India had never stated that the terrorists targeted at Balakot were from other countries.
Predictably, the news agency report, which was published by a number of Indian newspaper sites, led to Pakistan claiming that their version has been proved correct. Islamabad has maintained that the Indian fighters dropped their payload prematurely when intercepted by the Pakistan Air Force and that the airstrike caused no damage or casualties.
“Finally the truth under ground reality compulsions. Hopefully, so will be about other false Indian claims ie surgical strike 2016, denial of shooting down of 2 IAF jets by PAF and claim about F16. Better late than never,” tweeted director general, Inter-service press relations, Major General Asif Ghafoor. He was implying that Swaraj had inadvertently endorsed Pakistan’s claim that Indian bombs hit the mountainside and did not damage the main building.
The IAF had struck a Jaish-e-Mohammad terror training camp in Pakistan on February 26, in response to the February 14 Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. She said the entire international community supported India over the air strike. Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Swaraj said he has emerged as a top international leader who sets the agenda for the world.
There has been no response yet from Swaraj or the ministry of external affairs to the Pakistani military’s tweet. However, MEA sources asserted that the minister was had referred to Pakistani ‘civilians’, and not ‘citizens’, as was erroneously reported. India’s official statements on the airstrikes have always said that no civilians were harmed.
As can be seen from a video recording of Swaraj’s speech on social media, the minister uses the Hindi word, ‘nagrik’ in her remarks. “Pakistan ka koi nagrik nahin marna chahiye, Pakistan ke sena ko kharoch nahin aani chahiye,” were the instructions given to Indian military about the airstrikes, she stated. These orders were implemented and no Pakistani “nagrik” or “sainik” was touched, Swaraj added.
In Hindi, the word nagrik can mean citizen or civilian. Certainly, in the context of her formulation, it refers to ‘civilian’. A ‘sainik’ or a soldier is, of course, a citizen by default. Therefore, when Swaraj refers to ‘sainik’ and ‘nagrik’ in the same breath, her connotation is clearly about civilians. While ‘asainik’ is a specific word for civilian, it is mostly used to describe a facility.
On the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, Swaraj said the then Congress-led UPA government had failed to take along other countries to isolate Pakistan despite the fact that 40 persons belonging to 14 countries were also killed in the strike.
Pakistan had objected to the invitation extended to India for a meet of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Abu Dhabi last month, but the host county UAE snubbed Islamabad, she said.(With Inputs from the agencies).
