Indian defence minister Pranab Mukherjee told a group of reporters in New York on Wednesday that it was wrong of President Pervez Musharraf to claim in his book that India had been outclassed and outgunned in the Kargil conflict.
Commenting on the Pakistani leader's assertion of Pakistani military superiority in the conflict that nearly brought the two countries to all-out war, Mukherjee said, "It is absolutely incorrect, factually it is not correct. There is no question of being defeated in Kargil. Yes, initially there were some setbacks because of the intrusions. But we got it back and established our posts there. There is no question of the Indian Army being defeated."
He found it contradictory that the Pakistani leader had now admitted that the Pakistan Army was involved in Kargil when throughout the war, Islamabad kept insisting that this was an action by the mujahideen. "Now the Chief of Army Staff and President of Pakistan admits it was the handiwork of the Pakistan Army itself. Therefore both things cannot be true. What he is saying now may be true, but what they were saying at that time during the campaign was not true." He compared the Kargil military "intrusion" to similar actions undertaken by Pakistan in 1948 and 1965 in Kashmir. |