A nation whose "Defence Minister is weak and coward can never take on enemies,"Mulayam Singh Yadav said
Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday called Defence Minister Arun Jaitley "weak and coward" and said it is for this reason that the defence personnel are being killed on the Line of Control and elsewhere in Jammu and Kashmir.
In Agra to attend a private event, when the former Defence Minister was asked by journalists to comment on the recent attacks on armymen and para-military troopers, he said a nation whose "Defence Minister is weak and coward can never take on enemies."
"I have one question for the union government and the minister concerned: why are you not able to muster courage to show the enemy their place," Mr Yadav said.
He claimed that during his stint as the Defence Minister in the HD Deve Gowda government, he had ordered army to cross into Pakistan and teach the enemy a lesson.
Mr Yadav also said that he had then also ordered the army to take on the enemy forces from Arunachal Pradesh to Pathankot.
Mulayam Singh Yadav said that the Defence Minister should show courage and allow the defence forces to take on the enemy and respond in a befitting manner.
Mr Yadav's strong attack comes after two Indian soldiers were killed and their bodies mutilated by Pakistan's Border Action Team earlier this month. Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh of the Indian Army and Constable Prem Sagar were on patrol at the Line of Control in Kashmir when they were ambushed by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) of army men and terrorists that sneaked 250 metres into Indian territory.
Calling the killing and mutilation of its two soldiers a "strong act of provocation", India has told Islamabad there is "sufficient evidence" of the role of the Pakistani army. However, Pakistan had asked for "actionable evidence", warning "any misadventure shall be appropriately responded at a place and time of own choosing."