Punjab ready to face any situation: Badal

CHANDIGARH: Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Thursday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Indian Army’s surgical strikes on terror camps across the Line of Control (LoC), inside Pakistan-Ocupied Kashmir (POK), hailing it as an “apt, timely and effective operation”.

Badal had called an emergency cabinet meeting here on Thursday evening to take stock of the situation and ministers also lauded the PM for “decisively ordering this surgical operation to demolish the bases and camps of those acting with impunity against our citizens”, a spokesman here stated.

At a press conference later, Badal said that the people of Punjab are “ready to face the situation in this crisis”. “Punjab, sword arm of India, has suffered immensely because of terrorism. Peace and communal harmony in the state was one of the prime targets of these elements in the attacks on Dinanagar and Pathankot,” the CM stated.

Along the border, 60 villages were being evacuated in Fazilka district, 300 in Ferozepur, 135 in