India can do what US did to Osama, says Arun Jaitley

New Delhi: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday suggested that India is capable of carrying out an operation similar to the 2011 US action in Pakistan to eliminate Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

His remarks at an event related to the campaign to clean River Ganga came a day after the Indian Air Force pounded the main terror camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed terror outfit in Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province .

Referring to the US operation in Abbotabad, Mr Jaitley said, “It is said that a week is too long a time in politics. In our country the way people get enthusiastic, if you look at the last 24 hours, one week would appear to be a day. “The kind of things we see.... I remember when the US Navy SEAL had taken Osama bin Laden from Abottabad, can’t we do the same?”

The US’ special forces had raided Osama’s hideaway, a compound in Abbotabad in  Khyber Pakhtunkhwa north of Islamabad, killing the dreaded terrorist.

“We could earlier only imagine, desire and get frustrated and disappointed (for failing to conduct such operations). But today, it is possible,” he said at the event dedicated to generate funds to clean river Ganga.

The comments came a day after the escalation of tension between the two nuclear power neighbours. India had hit the biggest terror camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror outfit in Pakistan in a pre-dawn strike on Tuesday.

The attacks on the JeM terror camp came after the February 14 Pulwama attack in which over 40 security personnel from India were killed by a sucicide bomber from the terror outfit.