NEW DELHI: The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has nothing to hide concerning a deadly attack on a military convoy in Kashmir in 2019, India’s home minister said.
Earlier this month, Satya Pal Malik, who was the governor of occupied Kashmir at the time of the attack, alleged that paramilitary personnel were denied air transport and were made to travel by road amid intelligence failures to detect a threat.
Malik informed Modi that the attack was a failure on the government’s part but was asked to stay silent, he told a local news outlet in an interview.
Malik told The Wire that he “realised that all the onus of the attack will be put on Pakistan” to reap electoral benefits.
“Narendra Modi is a very ill-informed person.”
Satyapal Malik opens up to Karan Thapar on what really happened in Pulwama – including the PM’s instructions to not speak about lapses – in this explosive interview.
Full video here: https://t.co/47ENX7WzM2 pic.twitter.com/xVrt2P2wom
— The Wire (@thewire_in) April 14, 2023
Modi had repeatedly cited the Pulwama attack to mobilise voters in the 2019 general elections, in which he returned to power with a larger majority in parliament.
Responding to Malik, Home Minister Amit Shah, speaking in a roundtable discussion on the India Today TV programme, 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.
A suicide bomber rammed a car into a bus carrying Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on February 14, 2019, killing 40 of them in the deadliest attack in decades on security forces in the disputed region.
New Delhi accused Islamabad of orchestrating the attack which brought the two nuclear powers to the brink of another war. But Pakistan denied its involvement in the attack.
Kashmir is a Muslim-majority region at the heart of decades of hostility between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India. The neighbours both rule parts of the region while claiming the entire territory as theirs.
