Indian minister rebukes Pulwama attack claims

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has nothing to hide concerning a deadly attack on a military convoy in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) in 2019, India's home minister said.

In an interview earlier this month, Satya Pal Malik -- who was the so-called IIOJK governor during the Pulwama attack of February 2019 and the scrapping of Article 370 in August that year -- said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “ill-informed” and “ignorant” about Kashmir.

He added that Modi had told him not to speak about the home ministry’s lapses, which led to the devastating terrorist attack on Indian soldiers in Pulwama in February 2019.

In a wide-ranging interview with Karan Thapar, Malik revealed that the attack on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Pulwama was a result of the “incompetence” and “negligence” of the Indian system.

In particular, he added that the reason behind the attack was the ineffectiveness as well as carelessness of the CRPF convoy in Pulwama, terming it a result of “incompetence” and “negligence” of the Indian system.

At that time, Rajnath Singh was the Indian home minister.

Malik gave extensive details about how the CRPF had asked for aircraft to transport its personnel but was refused by the union home ministry.

Read IIOJK: India’s quest for legitimacy

He also spoke about how the sanitisation of the route was not carried out effectively.

More importantly, he said all of these lapses were raised by him directly when Modi called him from outside Corbett Park shortly after the Pulwama attack.

He added that the Indian prime minister had told him to keep quiet about the matter and not disclose it to anyone.

Malik disclosed that Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval had also told him to keep mum on the issue and not talk about it.

He added that he had immediately realised that the intention was to put the blame on Pakistan and derive electoral benefit for the ruling BJP.

Reacting to the revelations made by Malik, the Foreign Office in Islamabad had said that Pakistan’s stance stood vindicated.

"His disclosures demonstrate how the Indian leadership has habitually used the bogey of terrorism from Pakistan to advance its sham victimhood narrative and the Hindutva agenda, clearly for domestic political gains," an FO statement had read.

Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, speaking in a roundtable discussion on the India Today TV programme, has however said the credibility of the comments needed to be questioned.

"I would surely tell the people of the country that the Bharatiya Janata Party government has done nothing that needs to be hidden," he said.

His comments are the government's first response to Malik's allegations.

With input from Reuters