 "Pakistan's government follows army's instructions: Congress")
Congress General Secretary Shakeel Ahmed toook a dig at its neighbour's political structure on Ocotber 10, saying that Pakistan's policy decisions are taken by its armed forces unlike India, where it is the government that frames policies.
"There is a big difference between the two. In India, armed forces implement decisions taken by the government... Whereas in Pakistan, their army decides the policy and the Government of Pakistan and the Pakistan Prime Minister work under the instructions of their army," said Anhmed.
Adding further, he also said that the goverment of Pakistan, including its leader- the Prime Minister, is a subordinate entity as it takes instructions from the army.
Ahmed was responding to a statement made by the Pakistan High Commissioner, Abdul Basit, who had said that Islamabad does not want a meaningless dialogue with India on Kashmir, adding that India, in his opinion, could not have a policy for Pakistan without consulting its armed forces.
In an interview with Times of India, Basit said, "When it comes to issues concerning India, Afghanistan and other issues which are security related... obviously our army or military has an important role to play. It has important inputs to give. So to expect that it will not have any role in Pakistan's India policy or Afghanistan policy and other such issues is incorrect. Do you believe India can have a Pakistan policy without consulting its armed forces or US can have a Pakistan or Afghanistan policy without consulting Pentagon? One should not be reading too much into these things."
Speaking about "Operation Ginger", Ahmed said, "Obviously there are all proofs of the operation. The only difference, however, is that we did not try to cash in on the surgical strikes for political benefit like Prime Minster Narendra Modi and his ministers because our army had done it on the instruction of the government and in the country's interest. We did not publicise it to win plaudits."
As per a report, the Indian Army did carry out surgical strikes across the LoC in retaliation to a surprise attack on an army post on the Gugaldhar Ridge in Kupwara in July 2011, which led to the death of 13 soldiers and a beheading of six of them. In retaliation, the Indian Army planned "Operation Ginger."
Major General (retired) S.K. Chakravorty, who executed "Operation Ginger", told ANI that the 2011 strike was a response to two cross-border surgical strikes by Pakistan.
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"They (Pakistan) first conducted an operation, but action was done from their side. To take revenge of that, this operation was conducted," he said.
Major General (retired) Chakravorty admitted that all details regarding the 2011 operation were true and said that even the then DGMO and the then Army Chief General V.K. Singh had information about it, but refused to go into detail about it.