Deputy leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, has demanded from the BJP Government a white paper on the Pulwama terror attack and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to break his silence and fix responsibility on those whose failure led to the death of 40 jawans.
Neither the Prime Minister nor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has any answers on the allegations made by former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik, he said. Mr. Malik alleged that the government denied aircraft for Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)‘s travel, forcing them to go by road to Srinagar which led to their death in February 2019.
“The Prime Minister is always busy using even the martyrdom of the soldiers for his politics, but he should now break his silence as he was accountable to the people and also the families of the 40 jawans who died in the attack,” he said, speaking to reporters in Hyderabad along with the Telangana Congress president A. Revanth Reddy.
It is not just Mr. Malik, who was the Governor of the State at the time of the attack, but a similar demand on fixing accountability was also raised by former Army Chief General (retd.) Shankar Roychowdhury, who has an unblemished record as an officer. Instead of answering the questions, the government is now harassing those raising questions by sending CBI teams, he alleged.
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Mr. Gogoi wondered what kind of nationalism the BJP and Prime Minister keep on harping when they have failed to fix responsibility on those who ignored the intelligence inputs and also denied aircraft for the jawans. He said after the 26/11 attack on Mumbai, the then-Home Minister, R.R. Patil resigned from his post. There was an enquiry and the government made it public proving its accountability.
“Why is Modi Government just deaf to demands of justice and accountability on Pulwama attacks even after four years,” he asked, and said responsibility has not been fixed even on a single person.
Mr. Gogoi also targeted Home Minister Amit Shah, who in a recent media event in New Delhi tried to defame Mr. Malik rather than answering straight to the question on the allegations.
The reporter also allowed him to play the blame game rather than asking Mr. Shah to answer the question, he said reminding that the media is the representative of people seeking accountability from the government. “After all Mr. Malik was the Governor appointed by the BJP Government.”
The MP from Assam said Prime Minister must tell the nation how the attack took place, who was responsible for the negligence of intelligence reports, and who denied the aircraft to shift the jawans. What is the role of CRPF, Home Ministry, NSA and the Prime Minister’s Office in the entire fiasco and what steps the government has taken to prevent such attacks, he asked. “People have every right to know answers on these questions.”
