2016 surgical strike on Pakistan live-streamed to Delhi Army headquarters

Indian Army’s fearless surgical strike in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir last year was live-streamed in the Army headquarters in Udhampur and Delhi, the officer-in-charge of the operation has revealed.

Former General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Indian Army’s Northern Command (retired) Lieutenant General DS Hooda in an interview with India TV said the commandos were sending live images of the entire operation back to Army headquarters.

“Yes, we were getting the images live. I was sitting in the operations room in our command headquarters in Udhampur. I saw the entire operation live how our teams attacked the targets, and the entire live feed was being sent to Delhi Army Headquarters,” Lieutenant General (retired) DS Hooda said.

However, Hooda didn’t tell if the Home Minister Rajnath Singh and PM Modi were also watching the live streaming but confirmed the feed was also going to Delhi too.

“I don’t know who were watching in Delhi. In Udhampur, we were watching and the feed was going to Delhi too,” Hooda said.

Also Read | From 1971 to 2016: History of surgical strikes in India

However, he refused to disclose as to whether the live streaming was done through satellite or some other technology.

Hooda also refused to reveal the technology through the liver streaming was done but revealed that the Army has the capability to see live streaming of such operations.

 “I can’t disclose what technology we used, but the Indian Army has the capability where you can see live streaming of operation that was going on. We have the capability,” Hooda said.

After the successful operation, teams of Army’s Special Forces returned at different times and the last team reported back at around 6.30 AM.

“Some teams arrived earlier. They had left earlier and had struck at targets soon after midnight, while some other teams went in later and returned late,” he added.

Giving more insights of the surgical strikes, Hooda said the Army had also planned backup and teams were ready to go across LoC to retrieve and rescue in case any team failed to return.

“There was panic in the ranks of Pakistani forces. In some places, they were firing randomly. We had also planned a backup. If any team failed to return, we had teams ready to go in, retrieve and rescue and bring them back,” Hooda, who had planned the strikes, revealed.

Initially, the strikes on the terror launch pads in Pakistan were planned for September 27 but the final execution took place on September 28.