VK Singh urges ‘surgical strikes’ on govt’s critics

New Delhi: Minister of state for external affairs Gen. V.K. Singh (Retd), a former Chief of Army Staff, said Wednesday that while people want India to emulate Israel in targeting terrorists, this cannot happen because the Opposition in that country, unlike India, does not question and “insult” its military when it carries out tasks like “Operation Munich”. In a sweeping post on Facebook, he attacked the government’s critics, including Opposition leaders, students leaders, activists and the media, and urged a “surgical strike” within India, saying if it doesn’t happen, the “robbers are ready to loot”.

News agency reports quoted the retired general saying student leaders accused of involvement in “anti-India” protests were like “jonk” (tapeworms) and took aim at the media for referring to terrorists as “militants”, saying such things didn’t happen in Israel. It was high time the country followed Israel, he went on to add.

He wrote the Facebook post amid a fierce slugfest between the government and the Opposition parties after the Balakot airstrikes, with the latter seeking proof that a high number of terrorists were killed, as claimed by some ruling party leaders, including BJP president Amit Shah. The BJP has in turn accused its rivals of lowering the morale of the armed forces and of “speaking the language of Pakistan”.

In a tweet, Gen. Singh also used a mosquito metaphor to refer to the debate on the terrorist casualty figures, asking if he was expected to sit and count how many he had killed at night or “sleep in comfort”. He tweeted: “There were a lot of mosquitoes at 3.30 am at night. So I used Hit (mosquito repellent) on them. Now, should I sit and count how many mosquitoes I killed or sleep in comfort?” The minister headlined his Facebook post as “Why India does not become Israel?” People want revenge and expect that PM Narendra Modi will enter Pakistan in a tank and finish off all Pakistanis, he added.

“We want to be in Israel mode overnight. No, it won’t happen. If PM Modi is there, I have expectation and faith that revenge will be taken. It will be fierce and 100 times more intense. But India cannot be Israel and will not be Israel,” he said, in the post written in Hindi, PTI reported.

He listed multiple reasons why he thinks India cannot be Israel. There is no JNU in Israel, where youngsters can raise slogans in support of breaking the country, he said, in an apparent reference to the protests at the university in February 2016 where some anti-national slogans were allegedly raised. Also, no courts are opened for terrorists at 2 am in the night, and nor do journalists there “cry” for human rights of terrorists, he went on, according to reports.

“Because when Israel carries out Operation Munich, the Opposition there does not insult the country or the armed forces by seeking proof,” Gen. Singh said, in an apparent reference to the covert operation of Israeli spy agency Mossad to eliminate those involved in the massacre of the country’s team at the 1972 Munich Olympics. “There are no tapeworms (in Israel) like Shehla Rashid and Kanhaiya Kumar, who study on the taxpayers’ money and call the Army rapists,” he alleged.