Go on offensive to tackle terrorism: Capt

Sarbjit Dhaliwal and Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

chandigarh/Dinanagar, July 28

Former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh today said India must follow the policy of hot pursuit against terrorists, who come from across the border and kill innocent civilians.

Talking to The Tribune, Amarinder said Indians were not superfluous people to be killed by terrorists from across the border.

"In case of any attack in future, India must resolve to give a befitting reply by attacking the terrorist back in their dens across the border. There should be no second thought in this regard. In case, the situation escalates in a full war, let it be so and India should not be shy of fighting the war. Pakistan should be held responsible for engineering such a war," he said.

Amarinder today visited the Dinanagar police station and commended the role of the Punjab Police.

He said the SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team did a brilliant job in killing the terrorists. He was accompanied by Aruna Chowdhury, sitting Congress MLA of Dinanagar, and several other former and sitting legislators. 

He later drove to Chauhan Medicity Hospital in Kotli, 12 km from Dinanagar, where he met Kamaljit Singh Matharoo whose car was snatched by the terrorists after grievously injuring him. 

Accompanied by senior Congress man and PPCC member Raman Bahl, Amarinder also visited the Gurdaspur Civil Hospital where he met SHO Mukhtiar Singh, Head Constables Mukhtiar Singh and Ranjit Singh, all of whom had sustained injuries.

Referring to Pakistan army chief Raheel Sharif’s statement that Pakistan was not Myanmar, after the Indian Army smashed militant hideouts there, Amarinder retorted: “Let me tell the General (Sharif) that India is not Myanmar either, and you should be knowing it too well from your experiences with repeated defeats in which your close relatives fought”.

He reminded the Pakistani army chief that he was from a military family with his brother Shabir Sharif getting killed in 1971 and his maternal uncle Raja Aziz Bhatti killed in 1965. 

He said both of them got Nishan-e-Haider, the highest military award there. “We recognise those acts of valour but what you are doing now is a sheer act of cowardice,” he said.