Saturday 20 / April / 2024
New Delhi: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday asserted that any individual or organisation that hurts the country should be given the same pain but how, when and where should be India's choice, remarks which come in the backdrop of the Pathankot terror attack.
Addressing an audience which consisted of top army brass, including its chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag, the Minister said that history tells us that until those who inflict damage on others experience the same pain, they don't change.
"I am of the opinion, it should not be taken as a government thinking, I always believe that if anyone harms you, he understands the same language.
"How, when and where should be of your choice but if someone is harming this country, then that particular individual or organisation, I purposely used the words individual and organisation, should also receive the pain of such activities," he said at a seminar organised by the Army here.
Asked to elaborate, Parrikar later said, "Basic principle is that until we give them pain, whoever they may be, until then, such incidents will not reduce".In a reference to the Pathankot attack, the Minister said the country was proud of its seven soldiers who laid down their lives but he is pained by the loss.
"I don't appreciate it. I have said that it is time we tell our soldiers that it is inevitable that we will lose some soldiers, and in this incident we lost one person in actual combat.
"We should tell them to think of the concept of taking life of your enemy, enemy of the country, instead of giving your life. This is an important aspect," he said.
He said that while sacrifice is respected, what nation needs is to neutralise the enemy.
Asked if that means there is a change in policy from the previous UPA government, Parrikar retorted, "If someone comes and hammers you, you should keep quite? Was that the policy?
"What I am saying is basically that history tells you that those who damage you, if they don't realise what pain they inflict, then they don't change".
Meanwhile, Punjab Police Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh was on Monday put by National Investigation Agency to exhaustive questioning for eight hours in connection with the Pathankot terror attack, during which contradictions were apparent in his statements to the investigators.
The agency is also concentrating to conclusively prove the identity of four terrorists, whose bodies were secured from the attack site as it got a Black Notice issued from Interpol.
The international notice is issued for identification of unidentified bodies found in a country, an MHA spokesperson said.
The NIA has also sent some body parts to CFSL to ascertain whether they belong to the remaining two terrorists who were involved in the 80-hour-long gun battle with security forces which left seven personnel dead, the sources said.
Singh, who arrived at agency headquarters here, was subjected to intense questioning between 11 am and 7pm and asked to appear again for examination.
Agency sources have not ruled out subjecting him to lie detector test as questioning will continue tomorrow when his cook Madan Gopal will also be examined by the terror investigation agency.
The sources claimed Gopal might be confronted with Singh who is still not giving clear answers to several key questions regarding his alleged abduction by attackers of the IAF base.
The NIA has also summoned Gopal to the headquarters for questioning and if need be the two would be confronted, a Home Ministry spokesperson said.
The central agency, which took over the case immediately after terrorists struck inside the IAF base during the intervening night of January 1 and 2, had summoned Singh as he was kidnapped by terrorists during the New Year night before they entered into the air base.
Singh, who is at present a Superintendent of Police-rank officer posted as Assistant Commandant of 75th battalion of Punjab Armed Police after he was removed as SP (headquarters)Gurdaspur, had allegedly given contradictory statements about his kidnapping and sequences of events preceding and succeeding the hostage event, official sources said.
The NIA has recorded statement of the caretaker of the shrine which Singh had said that he had visited with Gopal and his jeweller friend Rajesh Verma, who was left bleeding with a cut below his throat by the terrorists after abducting the other two.
The caretaker, who is related to the cook, had told the sleuths that Gopal and Verma had come in the morning of December 31 and again in the evening and he was not aware of the reason for his visit to the shrine twice, they said.
NIA had recored Singh's statement in Pathankot but he has been asked to come on January 13 as his statements were also contradictory in nature, the sources said.
A 10-member NIA team continuing search operation in Punjab has already recovered AK-47 magazine, mobile phone and binoculars from IAF base in Pathankot, the spokesperson said.
NIA teams are working across Punjab and are examining witnesses and carrying out search operations at the encounter site as well as outside the base, he said.
