Rathore was closeted with Singh for about 20 minutes last evening soon after the Home Minister chaired a high level meeting to take stock of the situation arising out of the killing of 18 army personnel on June 4 and the cross-border operation on camps of Northeast militants.
"It was a much-needed decision that was taken by the Prime Minister. This decision was extremely bold in nature. And it involved our Special Forces crossing the border and going deep into another country," said Rathore, a retired Colonel on Tuesday night on the day of Army's first of its kind operation.
These comments by Rathore were slammed by opposition parties with Congress terming it as "boastful and jingoistic" and also asked Modi to counsel his ministers to avoid "chest thumping".
The parties also felt that the kind of statements made by the Union Ministers since the pre-dawn strike are not going to help the operations of India's special forces.
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The sources said most of the killed militants belonged to Manipur's People's Liberation Army and Manipur Naga Revolutionary Front while just one belonged to the NSCN (Khaplang).
Officials were unwilling to come on record on the exact number of casualties.
NSCN-K has challenged the Government to display the pictures of the cross-border operation.