Islamabad: In a fresh rhetoric, Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa has said his forces are fully geared to respond to “any aggression” by India as he rejected claims that India carried out “surgical strikes” on Pakistan.

“Pakistan’s armed forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) spokesperson Major Gen Asif Ghafoor quoted Gen Bajwa as saying.

Maj Gen Ghafoor tweeted that Gen Bajwa rejected the “self defeating claims” of Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat about ‘so called surgical strikes’ and its possible recurrence. India maintains that its forces last year conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, targetting terrorists and destroying their training camps. Gen Rawat, who took over as the 27th chief of Indian army on December 31, has said India will give a calibrated “hard” response to terror activities that will compel Pakistan to completely rethink its strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism. “We will calibrate the response in a manner it hits them hard and compels them to think in the long run whether they need to completely rethink their strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism in our state,” said Gen Rawat, who as the Vice Chief was actively involved in the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC. — PTI