Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday stoked controversy after claiming that the Narendra Modi-led central government had asked Punjab to pay Rs 7.5 crore for sending military during the Pathankot attack in 2016.
Controversial Claim
Mann said, "During the Pathankot attack, the military came. Later I received a letter that Punjab should pay Rs 7.5 crore as the military was sent". "Sadhu Singh and I went to Rajnath Singh. Told him to deduct from my MPLAD but give in writing that Punjab isn't the country's part and took military from India on rent," the chief minister added.
The sensational claim by the newly elected chief minister of the border state raised many eyebrows in political circles and elsewhere.
Rajnath Singh was then the Home Minister of India when the deadly Pathankot attack took place in 2016. CM Mann claimed that he along with the AAP leader Sadhu Singh went to meet Singh in New Delhi and had asked him to deduct the money from his Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLAD) funds in return of a written statement that Punjab isn't a part of the country and took the military on rent from India.
2016 Pathankot attack
On January 2 2016, heavily armed group of terrorists attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station, part of the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force. Seven Indian army personnel were martyred in the attack, while all five terrorists were gunned down. The attack occurred just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a surprise visit to then Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif on his birthday. India has named JeM chief Masood Azhar as the mastermind of the airbase attack.
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