India won't play on backfoot against terror, says Arun Jaitley

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday slammed Congress President Rahul Gandhi over his chief advisor Sam Pitroda's remarks on Indian Air Force’s air strike on a terror camp in Balakot following the Pulwama attack and said if the 'guru' (teacher) has such thinking, then one can imagine how his student would be. Jaitley also emphasised that India won’t play on backfoot against terror.

“Fight against terror cannot be won by playing on the backfoot and India's security doctrine had evolved to a point where it does not just defend itself, but can also go to the origin of terror and make a pre-emptive strike,” Jaitley was quoted as saying by IANS.

His remarks came in response to Indian Overseas Congress chief Sam Pitroda's comments that incidents like the February 14 Pulwama suicide bombing ‘happen all the time’ and that the UPA government also could have sent planes to Pakistan post the 2008 Mumbai terror attack but ‘according to me that's not how you deal with world.’

"There is no country that has criticised the surgical strikes or the air strikes conducted by India except for one nation, Pakistan. The fact that senior Congress leaders are speaking the same language is unfortunate and also hurts the sentiments of the country. To say that the Pulwama attack was self-engineered is a blessing for Pakistan's narrative," he said.

Saying that Pitroda's statement was ‘erroneous’, Jaitley asserted that it was based on the assumption that Pakistan state actors and non-state actors were different. "Their (Pakistan's) reaction to terror attacks has pointed out that non-state attackers are just an extended limb to the state actors of Pakistan," Jaitley told reporters on the sidelines of a function where former cricketer Gautam Gambhir joined the BJP.

Days after the Pulwama terror attack that claimed the lives of 40 CRPF jawans, the Indian Air Force fighter jets bombed terror group JeM training camp near Balakot inside Pakistan on February 26.

With Agency Inputs