The former Jammu and Kashmir Governor spilt the beans about the Pulwama incident of 2019 in which 40 jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed. In an interview with Karan Thapar, an Indian Journalist and Interviewer working with The Wire, the former J&K Governor accused the Home Ministry of India of the loss.
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The former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Satyapal Malik,’s statement has sparked a controversy as he spoke against the Central Government and current Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, on Saturday in an interview on YouTube with Karan Thapar, an Indian Journalist and Interviewer working with The Wire, a channel that supports independent journalism. Satyapal Malik has shed light on the Pulwama incident and told the interviewer, Karan Thapar, that he called the Prime Minister on the evening the Pulwama incident took place, but he was asked to remain silent about the issue and not tell anyone.
During the interview, Mr Thapar touched upon areas like the Pulwama incident, Article 370, Jammu and Kashmir’s media, corruption in Jammu and Kashmir, the Adani scandal, and a lot more. Satyapal Malik said that Mr Narendra Modi ‘has no problem with corruption, is ignorant of Kashmir, and silenced me on Pulwama Laparwahi’. The questions are being posed by the members of the opposite party, the Congress party, as they seek an answer to why the Home Ministry of India refused to provide aircraft to the Jawans. Bhupesh Baghel, Chief Minister of Chattisgarh, has said the BJP-led Central Government must respond to claims made by the former J&K Governor.
The Pulwama Incident in 2019
The deadliest attack on India’s state security personnel in Kashmir since 1989 is the Pulwama Incident that took place on February 14, 2019. The convoy consisted of 78 vehicles and was travelling from Jammu to Srinagar on National Highway 44. The incident took place near Awantipora; a bus that was full of security personnel was rammed by a car carrying explosives, which led to a blast that killed 40 CRPF soldiers of the 76th Batallion and injured many others. The injured soldiers were immediately moved to the army base hospital in Srinagar. Jais-e-Mohammed later took responsibility for the attack.
A team of 12 members was sent to investigate the attack. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) worked with the Jammu and Kashmir police to find the truth. It was found that the car was carrying more than 300 kilogrammes of explosives, including 80 kilogrammes of RDX, a high explosive, and ammonium nitrate, which were believed to be smuggled across the border. To date, the source of the explosives is still unknown, but the NIA was able to confirm the identity of the suicide bomber as Adil Ahmad Dar’s father; they were able to establish this fact through the DNA samples from “meagre fragments of the car.”
The Interview and the Controversy
Satyapal Malik’s interview with Karan Thapar has sparked controversy. He said the CRPF required five aircraft for carrying security personnel, and the Home Ministry of India denied that they would not be able to provide the aircraft to the jawans. He added further, Had I been there, he would have fulfilled the requirement of the army people. Later, the next day, when he learned about the incident, he was saddened and shocked by the attack, and when he called Mr Narendra Modi, he asked him to remain silent and not speak about the incident in public.
Mr Sanjay Raut has also come forward and spoken against the government and has demanded the Modi government should be booked for sedition and all the ministers that were involved in the incident should be “court-martialed” for the Pulwama incident, in which we lost our 40 CRPF jawans.
