The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh interacts with awardees during the Army Day Reception at Army House in New Delhi, yesterday.
New Delhi/jammu: The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said yesterday that those who brutally killed two Indian soldiers will be brought to book and there can be “no business as usual” with Pakistan.
“There can be no business as usual after the barbaric act,” the prime minister said when journalists asked about the government’s move to hold back visa on arrival for senior Pakistani citizens.
He was speaking at a get-together here hosted by Army Chief General Bikram Singh on the occasion of Army Day. The visa on arrival was to start yesterday. “Those responsible for the heinous act will be brought to book,” Manmohan Singh said.
The prime minister was referring to the January 8 killing of two Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir, about 600 metres away from the Line of Control (LoC).
One of the soldiers was beheaded and his head taken away by the raiders. The other soldier’s body was mutilated, Indian officials say. The brutality has outraged India.
Meanwhile, Lt Gen K T Parnaik declared that the army had a “definite plan” to avenge the brutal killing of two soldiers by Pakistani troops.
“We have definite plans to retaliate but not in haste and anger, and at the time and place of our own choice,” the head of the Northern Command told the media.
He was speaking at an investiture ceremony at Akhnoor, 40km west of Jammu.
Gen Parnaik said there was a lot of anger among army units after the Pakistani troops killed two Indian soldiers. “But I pacified them,” he said.
Gen Parnaik said that even after the brigadier-level flag meeting on Monday at Chakan da Bagh in Poonch district, Pakistan fired at three Indian forward posts in Mendhar sector. The Indian Army retaliated.
He maintained that Indian troops did not cross the border in Uri sector on January 6 — the day Pakistan claimed that one of its soldiers was killed — nor thereafter despite the high provocation.
“Pakistan was given all the evidence of (their) laying mines on the Indian side of the LoC, killing of Indian soldiers and mutilation of their bodies but they were in a denial mode,” Gen Parnaik said.
“This was Pakistan’s way of telling lies”, he said. According to Gen Parnaik, there were 43 terrorist launching pads in Pakistani Kashmir and 400-500 terrorists were prepared to infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir.
Gen Bikram Singh will today visit the family of Lance Naik Hemraj, who was decapitated by Pakistani troops.
The family has been demanding that the soldier’s severed head be returned to them.
Gen Singh has called the killing of Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh as a “gruesome and an unpardonable act”.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday lauded the prime minister for talking tough with Pakistan, saying he had understood the mood of the nation after the brutal killings.
BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said Manmohan Singh’s “most important statement” was that there could no more business as usual with Islamabad. She said the incident was “so barbaric” that the prime minister had “understood the mood of the country”.
The BJP leader said she spoke to National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon a day after the soldiers were killed by Pakistani troops. Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said the government’s future action —diplomatic and tactical — “should be left to the foreign office and the national security establishment.”
IANS
