NEW DELHI: Pakistan needs to understand that the “dangerous game” of terrorism that it has been playing since 1947 is over, defence minister Rajnath Singh said Friday, demanding that Islamabad hand over terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar to India for justice.Stressing that PM Modi has made it clear that another terrorist act on Indian soil will be treated as “act of war”, Singh said Operation Sindoor was India’s “frontal assault” against terrorism and if Pakistan resorted to “anything evil or unethical” again, it would face the Indian Navy’s “firepower and ire” this time.“India will not hesitate. It will use every method to root out menace of terrorism. Even methods that Pakistan cannot think of,” he said, addressing officers and sailors on board aircraft carrier INS Vikrant off the coast of Goa.The minister went on to say that the last time the Indian Navy swung into action, Pakistan was divided into two in 1971. “If the Indian Navy had come into action in Operation Sindoor, then I think Pakistan would have been divided into four parts,” he said, in the presence of top officers like Navy chief Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi and Western Naval Command chief Vice Admiral Sanjay J Singh.Several Indian warships and submarines led by INS Vikrant, with its MiG-29K fighters, were forward deployed in a dissuasive deterrent posture in the northern Arabian Sea, at the time IAF and Army launched deep precision strikes against nine terror hubs in Pakistan and PoK on May 7. It bottled up Pakistan Navy within its own shores in a defensive mode.Singh once again rebuffed Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif’s suggestion of bilateral dialogue to cover all issues, reiterating that talks could take place only on terrorism and PoK.
