Video footage of 2016 surgical strike shows Army destroying terror hubs in PoK

Video clips of the surgical strike that the Indian Army conducted in September 2016 were broadcast by various TV news channels on Wednesday night.

The footage of the strike against terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) has been reportedly captured by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Thermal Imaging (TI) cameras. This was reportedly being sent live during the surgical strike to the Operations Room of the Army headquarters in Udhampur.

The clips showed bunkers being bombed, grenades being hurled at target locations to eliminate terror launch pads and some terrorists being killed.

Lt General DS Hooda, who was directly in charge of the surgical strike, told The Indian Express that the footage, which has now been accessed by various media channels, is real and it should have been released earlier as proof.

Meanwhile, national spokesperson of the Congress, Randeep Singh Surjewala, held a press conference today where he hit out at the Modi government for "using the sacrifice of our brave jawans as a political vote garnering tool”.  He said, “The surgical strike was shamelessly politicized by the BJP for the March 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elelctions." he even accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of “endangering our security infrastructure” and “putting the lives of our soldiers in danger”.

Surgical strikes were conducted by the Army in 2016 on the intervening night of September 28-29 in order to eliminate terror hubs in the PoK region. The BJP and the Congress had then engaged in a war of words, with the Congress demanding proof and accusing then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar of “unabashedly lying and misleading people of India”.

The BJP, in reply, had declared that anyone who seeks proof after the Army had apprised the nation of the strike, was insulting the armed forces. Party general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya went on to say that it could even “amount to sedition”.