A view of Taj Mahal hotel which was targeted during 2008 Mumbai terror attack | Photo Credit: PTI

New Delhi: A UPA insider on Monday corroborated Air Chief Marshal (Retd) Fali Homi Major's version that the Indian Air Force was ready to take revenge for the devastating 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, but was held back due to UPA's reluctance to permit the same.

UPA 'spared' Saeed: We were prepared for surgical strike but didn't receive go ahead, says ex-IAF vice marshal

Nine years after the 26/11, the ex-IAF chief dropped a bombshell when he revealed that they had the plan as well as capability to hit the terror-training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in 2008, but the then UPA government never gave the necessary nod.

Talking to Times Now, the former IAF chief on Monday said: "Surgical strike was an opportunity lost and we didn't make use of it."

The 'insider' confirmed to Times Now that the Cabinet Committee on Security met in PMO on November 28, 2008, two days after the horrendous 26/11 attacks.

The chiefs of Navy, Air Force, Army, Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analyses Wing were present at the meeting chaired by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

During the meeting, the military option came up for discussion. The former IAF chief says he had put forward two-three absolute actionable points. However, the intelligence machinery during the UPA regime was clearly falling back on its tasks as there was no intel on coordinates on terror camps. Perhaps, due to this inefficiency, the IAF did not know the precise position of intended targets, that is the terror camps across the LoC, into Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK). There was always a fear of collateral damage. So, a decision was taken to gather more accurate intel.

Another CCS meeting was held on December 02, six days after 26/11. During that meeting, military options for a counter strike in PoK were discussed at length ad nauseam. However, it seemed the UPA lacked the will to carry out what the Army, Air Force, and perhaps even the Navy wanted. The 'insider' was present at the meetings. He told Times Now that PM Singh and other UPA Cabinet ministers were not keen on allowing the military options as they feared retribution from Pakistan.

The former military commander claims UPA blocked surgical strikes to avenge the 26/11 attacks. #UPANeDeshBecha pic.twitter.com/MdKV1a1YdW — TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) November 27, 2017

This vindicated Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claim when, during an address in election-bound Gujarat, he referred to the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks strike and the 2016 attack by Pakistani terrorists on an Indian Army camp in Uri, and said the difference between one government and another, one leader and other, can be judged by their response to such terror attacks.

“They killed our soldiers in Uri, our soldiers went inside their territory, conducted a surgical strike and came back. The next day a newspaper said they (in Pakistan) carried bodies in trucks,” he said today.

Modi alleged that the Congress raised questions on the surgical strike in September 2016.

”They could not respect Indian Army, they asked questions like ‘none of our soldiers was injured? None of them died? Have you any photo or video evidence?’ Had they gone to shoot a movie in Pakistan?” he said.

“When you go to the house of the poor and eat rotis, you ensure that you are filmed, but does that mean that a surgical strike should be filmed?” the Prime Minister asked.

The PM also asked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi why his party had applauded the release of 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan.

Rahul had recently tweeted: “Narendrabhai, baat nahi bani. Terror mastermind is free. President Trump just delinked Pak military funding from LeT. Hugplomacy fail. More hugs urgently needed.”

Rahul’s reference was to a Pakistan court’s decision to release from house arrest Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and mastermind of the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai.

The PM also remarked "yes, I sold tea but not the nation", paying back Congress in the same coin for its "chaiwala" (tea-seller) jibe.