Singh mulled action against Pak after 26/11 too

NEW DELHI:Former British premiere David Cameron has said in his memoirs that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confided in him about prospects of military action against Pakistan in the event of another Mumbaitype attack

Updated At : 12:17 PM Sep 21, 2019 IST

Dr Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister.

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 20

Former British premiere David Cameron has said in his memoirs that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confided in him about prospects of military action against Pakistan in the event of another Mumbai-type attack. The fact is, Singh had contemplated use of force against Pakistan soon after Mumbai terror strikes as well.

Singh in a recent interview to The Tribune said the Congress-led UPA I was ready with military punitive action against Pakistan after the November 26, 2008, terror attacks.

“The dastardly attack in Mumbai was unpardonable. I disagree with the insinuations that we were not ready with military punitive action. We were. We did contemplate the use of force but the geo-political situation was evolving in our favour then. We responded diplomatically and swiftly in isolating Pakistan.

“Our response was to isolate and diplomatically expose Pakistan as a terror hub besides rallying the international community for decisive action against terrorists. We succeeded too. Within 14 days of the Mumbai attack, we got China to agree to declare Hafiz Saeed as a global terrorist under the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee,” Singh told The Tribune.

Cameron’s work spanning his journey through 2010 to 2016 and titled “For The Record” unveiled yesterday mentions how the former British premiere enjoyed good relations with both Singh and Narendra Modi.

“I got on well with PM Manmohan Singh. He was a saintly man, but he was robust on the threats India faced. On a later visit, he told me that another terrorist attack like that (2008) in Mumbai… and India would have to take military action against Pakistan,” 52-year-old Cameron says, recalling with satisfaction he became the first serving British premiere to visit Amritsar and term the 1919 Jallanwala Bagh massacre as a deeply shameful event in British history. “That was appropriate,” Cameron says in memoirs.

Cameron’s book reignited the debate on the perception that Singh was a “soft PM” vis-à-vis his successor Modi.

But when The Tribune recently posed Singh a query about this perception, the Congress veteran dismissed it saying: “UPA I ensured a $10m bounty on the head of Mumbai attack perpetrator and founder of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba Hafiz Saeed by the US at the time and a 35-year conviction of another mastermind David Headley.”