Pulwama attack: Days after former Jammu and Kashmir governor Satypal Malik's allegations over the 2019 Pulwama attack, Congress on Tuesday demanded the central government to present a 'white paper' clarifying "intelligence failures" in the incident.
Addressing a press conference, Col (retd) Rohit Chaudhry and Wing Commander (retd) Anuma Acharya, both associated with the Congress party, posed a series of questions to the government on the attack in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed. Meanwhile, BJP has raised serious questions about Malik's credibility, citing various statements made by him in recent years.
The BJP had cited Malik's past remarks, including the one that mocked former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi as a "political juvenile", and slammed him as the "disgraced" governor of Jammu and Kashmir.
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Congress posed several questions to govt
At the Congress presser, the two army veterans posed questions to the Prime Minister on the basis of the assertions by the former army chief Gen (retd) Shankar Roychowdhury. They asked why were intelligence inputs between January 2, 2019, and February 13, 2019 warning of a terrorist attack ignored. Why were 2,500 CRPF soldiers not allowed to travel by air despite their request, they asked.
"How did the militants procure around 300 kg of explosives? How could this huge quantity remain undetected despite heavy security presence in South Kashmir, especially the Pulwama-Anantnag-Avantipora belt," Chaudhry said. "Four years after the attack, how far has the inquiry progressed? Why is there a delay in completing the inquiry and letting the nation know its findings?" they asked.
Earlier on April 15, the Congress demanded that the Centre reveal the outcome of the probe into the Pulwama incident and asked why the paramilitary personnel were "denied" aircraft and made to commute by road despite the terror attack threat.
2019 Pulwama attack
The Pulwama attack occurred on 14 February 2019, when a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel on the Jammu–Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber at Lethapora in the district. The attack killed 40 Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel as well as the perpetrator—Adil Ahmad Dar—who was a local Kashmiri youth from the Pulwama district. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed.
(With inputs from PTI)
