New Delhi, November 16: India’s “timid” response to the Pakistani military ingress in Kargil in 1999 has been blamed by a retired Army General for the series of terrorist strikes beginning with the attack on Parliament in 2001.
He has also come down heavily on the country’s then political, executive and military leadership — Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Defence Minister George Fernandes, Army chief General V P Malik and IAF chief Air Chief Marshal A Y Tipnis — for not standing up to the challenge.
“Our (NDA’s political and military leadership’s) timid response at Kargil, laid the foundation for future terrorist attacks on India, starting with the attack on the Indian Parliament,” former Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Harwant Singh says in an article in the coming edition of the Indian Defence Review.
Apart from the wasteful troop mobilisation at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore after the terror strike on Parliament House, India was paying, literally and figuratively, large sums on strengthening NSG, Coast Guard and police after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, all because of the dithering during Kargil operations, he says.
–Agencies