Union Minister Gen (Retd.) V K Singh today said Indian Army is capable of executing daring operations to avenge 26/11-like attacks by eliminating offshore criminals but certain "considerations" preventing it from doing so.
Singh was supported by former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar, who said that during his stint with the CBI, the agency had chalked a plan to get a "certain gentleman" in Pakistan which was scuttled on the last day by the "political bosses".
"Indian army is very capable. Given a task it will execute it in a much better manner than the Americans did (referring to US operations to kill Osama Bin Laden). As a country I think we have been giving much more elasticity to our limits of tolerance. Somewhere I suppose there are factors which 99 per cent people won't understand as to why?" Singh said, speaking at a book release function here.
Singh added that a country like Israel, which has got full backing from the "only superpower" that exists, can do certain things without considering the consequences.
"India is not in that state. We have to take care of many things. Especially effect on the economy," the former Army Chief said.
The duo was speaking at the launch of journalist-author S Hussain Zaidi's book "Mumbai Avengers", a fictional account of a covert operation by a retired Indian Army officer to avenge the 26/11 attacks.
Terming India as a "soft state", Kumar said that India was soft even when it came to "thinking" about avenging.
"When I was in the CBI for nine years at one time we had conceived a plan to get at a certain gentleman in Pakistan. Everything was done. At the last day we thought we would inform the political bosses or shall I say the boss but he said no, we are not Pakistan, we are India," he said.
Kumar went on to say that the agency had also planned of using "non-state" actors for the mission. "All the preparations went down the drain. Lot of money was invested. We had also planned the use of non-state actors as Pakistan has been doing continuously," he said.
