Congress appoints ex-Army officer who supervised surgical strike as national security panel head

Lt General (retired) DS Hooda, who supervised the surgical strike carried out in September 2016, will now lead a task force set up by the Congress to prepare a vision paper on national security of the country, The Indian Express reported.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi met Lt General Hooda, who was the Northern Army Commander during the surgical strike, to discuss the working of the task force. Gandhi also met a group of experts to chalk out effective strategies to guard the border.

The move comes days after a terrorist attack at a CRPF convoy killed 40 jawans in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan-backed Jaish-e-Mohammed, led by notorious terrorist Masood Azhar, claimed responsibility of the attack.

The Congress put out a tweet saying “a task force on national security” will be commissioned and headed by Lt General DS Hooda.

Congress President @RahulGandhi met with Lt Gen DS Hooda (retd) to institute a task force on National Security which will prepare a vision paper for the country. Gen Hooda will lead the task force & work with a select group of experts. pic.twitter.com/06zfIjfbeJ

— Congress (@INCIndia) February 21, 2019

Earlier today, the Grand Old Party questioned the “priorities” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying he was shooting a documentary for his "propaganda and publicity" in Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand on the evening of February 14 despite the Pulwama attack taking place in the afternoon.

In December 2018, at a seminar on ‘Role of Cross-Border Operations and Surgical Strikes’  Lt General Hooda had said the surgical strike was “overhyped” and that resulted in “politicization of military operations” which is “not good”.

“Did the overhype help? I say, completely no. If you start having political resonance in military operations, it is not good. There was too much political banter, on both sides, and when military operations get politicised, that is not good,” he had said.