Congress slams govt for failure: Advani wants Pakistan declared terrorist state
By Jawed Naqvi
NEW DELHI, July 16: In what must rank as a key test of the government’s credibility, Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes blamed Pakistan on Tuesday for a recent spate of killings in Jammu even as the state chief minister Farooq Abdullah said five people killed by security forces in the aftermath of the notorious Chattisinghpura massacre of Sikhs in 2000 were local civilians and not foreign militants.
“It has been clearly established that the deceased were not foreign terrorists as claimed by the forces who led the operations, but they were innocent civilians,” Abdullah told the state assembly in Srinagar citing a forensic report on the incident that occurred during President Bill Clinton’s visit to the region.
The Kolkota-based Central Forenisic Science Laboratory has established that the five killed were local civilians, he said.
Abdullah, who tabled the one-page CFSL report on Tuesday in the state assembly, said in view of the gravity of the offence made out as well as the attempt made by certain officials to destroy the evidence and to ensure fair investigation he had recommended that the case be taken up by the CBI federal police.
Senior army and police officials had claimed that the five persons killed as suspects in the Chattisinghpura massacre in which 35 Sikhs were gunned down were “top foreign mercenaries belonging to Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Lashkar-i-Taiba”.
Abdullah said CFSL and the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad, were requested by the state
government to collect blood samples from relatives of the deceased and match them with their DNA samples in view of “discrepancies” in the earlier collection of samples and consequent dispute regarding the identity of the victims.
Fernandes, apparently unable to resist naming Islamabad, said Pakistan was directly to blame for acts of “terrorism” inside India, including a weekend massacre of Hindus in Kasimnagar.
“This terrorism will not last even a minute if Pakistan does not want it,” Fernandes said during debate in parliament on Saturday’s massacre in Jammu.
“Pakistan’s name has come up again and again, even if they deny it,” he said.
“They condemned the incident but it is very difficult to believe them.”
“In the past few months we have seen an unusual trend in militancy when unarmed people who are not able to fight are being targeted,” Fernandes said.
“We have said that we should talk to Pakistan, but if they continue to train the terrorists and give them money and arms and then send them across, then if you think of talking to them under which diplomacy it falls, I can’t say,” he added.
Fernandes’ comments followed a severe criticism of the government’s handling of escalating violence in Kashmir.
“Government lacks a policy, a vision and determination to implement any plan of action” to combat terrorism, Congress leader Shivraj Patil told the Lok Sabha.
“Let us understand what is your policy in clear terms,” he stressed, adding “the nation should not be kept in the dark”.
Patil questioned the government’s explanation following each incident that it was at the behest of Pakistan.
“Simply by blaming Pakistan, are you going to solve this problem?” he asked.
“Our forces are on the border, our aircraft will be in the air, the warships on the sea and the terrorists will be hiding in the villages,” Patil said.
“The job has to be done by the home ministry and not by the defence ministry. We have been saying that to control and contain terrorism the police force has to be strengthened.”
The former Speaker also chided the government for rushing leaders abroad to explain its position “like a younger brother going to his elder brother” whenever he is troubled by someone.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, meanwhile, accused the government of using its standoff with Pakistan to foment communalism against the minority Muslims.
“The danger from Pakistan in J&K is real and has to be dealt with firmly. However, we must guard against the confrontation with Pakistan being used cynically by the BJP to polarise our own society, to stoke communal feelings,” Gandhi said, addressing the general body of the Congress Parliamentary Party.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani told parliament that the United States should declare Pakistan a terrorist state if it failed to stop cross-border terrorism against India.
“If the US wants it can stop terrorism and put an end to terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan by threatening that Washington would declare it a terrorist state,” Advani said while intervening in the Opposition-sponsored adjournment motion to discuss last Saturday’s Jammu massacre and government’s failure to combat terrorism.
Dissatisfied with Advani’s speech, the entire Opposition walked out accusing the government of not spelling out clear-cut steps to deal with terrorism.
