New Delhi: Former Jammu and Kashmir governor Satyapal Malik has triggered a political storm with his comments on 2019 Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.
While claiming that Union home ministry’s lapses led to the devastating terrorist attack on soldiers in Pulwama in February 2019, he alleged the Central Reserve Police Force’s (CRPF) request for an aircraft to transport the jawans from Jammu to Srinagar was turned down by the Centre despite intelligence inputs about threats. “CRPF people asked for aircrafts to ferry their people because such a big convoy never goes by road,” he told Karan Thapar in an interview for The Wire.
“They asked the Home Ministry, Rajnath ji. They refused to give. Had the asked me, I would’ve given them an aircraft, no matter how. They only needed five aircraft, which wasn’t given to them.”
He further claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to remain silent over the alleged lapses. “I told it to the Prime Minister in the evening that this has happened due to our fault. Had we given the aircraft, this wouldn’t have happened. To which he told me that I should keep quiet now.”
He further said that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who has been a classmate, also asked him to keep mum. “I can share with you, that I realised that this entire onus is going to be put on Pakistan so it’s better to be quiet on the subject now.” He also answered in affirmation when Karan Thapar said, “And we will get credit, and that will help our election.”
He, however, added: “The amount of explosives provided to that fellow could not be done internally. It was Pakistan, only, that arranged it. But the failure was on our part, mine too, that we could not locate that a car in that area was roaming around carrying so much explosive material.”
A car loaded with RDX was roaming around the streets and villages of Kashmir for 10 to 12 days and was not intercepted, he said, hinting at an intelligence failure.
Mallik was governor during the Pulwama terrorist attack of February 2019 and the scrapping of Article 370 in August that year.
While Opposition parties attacked PM Modi over his explosive remarks, the ruling BJP on Sunday shared several old clips of Malik praising the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that his “U-turns” raised questions about his credibility.
