Army briefs Parliamentary standing committee on defence about surgical strikes

After initial reluctance, the Army on Friday briefed members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence regarding the surgical strikes carried out by its men on terror launch pads inside Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

At least three members who attended the meeting said Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Bipin Rawat briefed the Committeeon the September 29 surgical strikes.

"A brief statement was made by the Army on the sensitiveissue. But no questions were taken," a member said.
But another member from NDA said Congress' MadhusudanMistry wanted to ask questions which was denied by panel chiefMaj Gen B C Khanduri (Retd). 

"There was a heated exchange of words between the two ... no questions were finally taken," he said.
Earlier, the standing committee was to get "Briefing bythe representatives of the Ministry of Defence on surgicalstrikes across the Line of Control (LoC)". 

But later, the agenda was changed to hearing by officials of the Defence Ministry, the Law Ministry and the Election Commission "on the status of implementation of E Postal Ballot System".

On Thursday, two senior Congress members Ambika Sonia andMistry had dubbed the move to change the agenda as "high1yunacceptable".
"The decision not to brief the committee over surgicalstrikes under the garb of secrecy only amounts to 'lack ofconfidence' in the Members of Parliament, who are in thecommittee and who are bound by the oath of secrecy.

This position is absolutely unacceptable to us," party GeneralSecretaries Soni and Mistry had said in a joint statementon Thursday.