New Delhi: A week after Home Minister Amit Shah said the three terrorists who carried out the Pahalgam attack had been killed in an encounter, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Renuka Chowdhury raised doubts whether those eliminated in Operation Mahadev were the “real” perpetrators of the 22 April massacre.
“They can’t catch the actual aatankwadi (terrorists). They don’t know how to do it. It took them so long to catch them. We don’t even know if they are the real ones, but they will come to parliament and target the women. Great. This is their level and limit,” Chowdhury told mediapersons outside parliament Tuesday.
The Rajya Sabha MP was speaking on the issue of deploying Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel inside the parliament, including on marshalling duties, which the Congress party has objected to.
“They can use power on us, police on us, and marshal power on us and think that we will be scared,” Chowdhury said.
Giving details around the process of identification of the terrorists who carried out the Pahalgam attack, the Union home minister told parliament 29 July that a joint team comprising troops from the Indian Army, CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police killed three terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba on the upper reaches of Srinagar.
He identified the trio as Suleiman, a ‘grade A category’ commander of the LeT, Afghan and Jibran, also grade A category terrorists. He asserted that Indian agencies had ample proof and evidence that they were the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack.
He had said that ballistic reports of the two AK-47s and one M-4 rifle by the Chandigarh Forensic Laboratory matched with cartridges recovered from the scene of crime in Pahalgam, confirming the use of the very rifles behind the ghastly attack.
Operation Mahadev was a joint operation by the Army, CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police launched in Kashmir’s Dachigam on 28 July.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had questioned the timing of the operation, pointing out its coincidence with the Parliament session. Congress leader Chowdhury takes the debate a step further by casting doubt on the identity of the terrorists and the authenticity of the encounter.
Speaking after Shah’s detailed speech in the lower house on 29 July, Yadav pointed out the encounter killing of the terrorists happened 28 July, when the parliament was set to discuss the Pahalgam attack and subsequent Operation Sindoor launched by the armed forces.
“We are all happy … terrorists killed, and we support it. But who is reaping the political gain after all? They are asking why I am not thanking them for Operation Mahadev? When it came to giving support, all the political parties of the country were with you…why did the encounter happen only yesterday?” Yadav said in the Lok Sabha during the debate on Operation Sindoor.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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