Year after the Balakot Airstrike, Defence Minister lauds the major shift in India's counter-terror policy
India's approach in dealing with terrorism has undergone a major change as its armed forces now do not hesitate to cross the border to protect the country against the menace, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on the first anniversary of the Balakot air strike.
A fleet of Indian Air Force aircraft had bombed a terrorist training camp deep inside Pakistan on February 26 last year as a pre-emptive strike after getting specific intelligence inputs about a possible terror attack in India emanating from the terror camp in Pakistan's Balakot.
Just days earlier, on February 14, 2019, 40 Indian soldiers were killed in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district. Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed admitted to carrying out the suicide terror attack.
Entering Pakistani territory and carrying out the Balakot air strike marked a paradigm shift in India's counter-terror operations and strategy.
"I thank the Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi for bringing change in India's approach against terrorism & our ways to counter terror," the Defence Minister tweeted.
"The Surgical Strikes of 2016 (in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) and Balakote Air Strikes of 2019 (inside Pakistan) are testimony to this change. This is certainly a New and Confident India in making," Mr Singh said in a series of tweets.