Pulwama Terror Attack: Amit Shah Cancels Visit To Odisha’s Sambalpur

Bhubaneswar: In the wake of the massive terror strike in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pulwama, BJP national president Amit Shah cancelled his scheduled visit to Sambalpur in Odisha on Friday.

During this one-day Odisha visit, the third this year, he was to hold a meeting with the booth-level organizers of four Lok Sabha constituencies – Dhenkanal, Sambalpur, Bargarh and Sundargarh – and share the poll strategy with the booth level presidents, secretaries, the mandal in-charge and the Odisha prabhari.

On Thursday, Shah had termed the terror attack by Jaish-e-Mohammed that killed over 40 CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district as an “act of cowardice” and asserted that security forces will defeat those involved in terrorist activities.

He also expressed grief over the death of brave soldiers in the incident.

“My deepest condolences are with the families of our soldiers who have lost their lives. Our forces will remain firm against such acts of terror and defeat them,” Shah wrote on Twitter.

Over 40 CRPF personnel were killed and dozens injured on Thursday evening when a suicide bomber rammed his SUV packed with explosives into a CRPF bus on the Srinagar-Jammu highway. Two among them – Prasanna Sahu and Manoj Kumar Behera – were from Odisha.

Terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed has claimed responsibility for the attack. It also released a video clip of the suicide bomber, identified as Adil Ahmad Dar, which it claimed was shot before the young man carried out the attack.