India to exercise all options to win decisive battle against Pakistan, says Arun Jaitley

India will exercise all options, diplomatic or otherwise, to win a decisive battle against Pakistan which is responsible for Pulwama terror attack, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday. At least 42 CRPF personnel were killed in one of the deadliest terror attacks when a Jaish suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 80 kg of explosives into their bus in Pulwama district that also left many critically wounded. More than 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Latoomode in Awantipora in south Kashmir.

Describing Pakistan as a "rogue state", he said it is not acting against perpetrators of the attack, though the guilty have themselves admitted to the attack and were taking credit for it.

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Jaitley while referring to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's speech said, "the head of the government says, give me actionable intelligence. You need an actionable intelligence if it is a blind offence, but here is a man sitting in your own country who owned up to the offence. So, when there is a confession...You have people sitting in your own country and admitting to the offence and saying that yes we have done it and taking credit for it".

Pakistan leadership, he said, is "riding a tiger on this issue and tiger never spares its own rider".

India today is extremely angry, he said, adding "in my lifetime, we have seen wars, we have seen human tragedies, we have seen prime ministers assassinated by terrorists. But the kind of anger which has been there, even on previous occasions, the one this time is unprecedented".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already stated that India will exercise all its instruments at its commands, whether it is diplomatic or otherwise.

"Therefore, we have to act in a manner that this battle has to be decisively won by us because Pakistan is not willing to give up its traditional role in our neighbourhood as a rogue state," the finance minister added.

"This is not a one-week battle. It should be undertaken in various forms," he said while speaking at the Global Business Summit here.

 (Wirth PTI inputs)