Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram’s remark on the Pahalgam terror attack has sparked off an intense political storm with the BJP launching an all-out attack on the opposition party.
Chidambaram, a former Union home minister, said in an interview to an online portal that there was no evidence to prove that that the attackers came from Pakistan.
"They are unwilling to disclose what the NIA has done all these weeks. Have they identified the terrorists, where they came from? For all we know, they could be homegrown terrorists. Why do you assume that they came from Pakistan? There's no evidence of that," he told The Quint.
Twenty-six people, mostly tourists, were killed as terrorists sprayed bullets on them after verifying their religious identity at Pahalgam on April 22. The attack led to an intense diplomatic and military confrontation between India and Pakistan with New Delhi alleging crosss-border links to the attack.
Chidambaram noted that the government was still not able to identify and arrest the attackers.
"Where are the terrorist attackers? Why have you not apprehended them, or even identified them? A news item had emerged about the arrest of a few people who gave the attackers shelter. What happened to them?,” he asked.
The BJP lashed out at the former minister’s remarks, accusing him of defending Pakistan. “Once again, the Congress rushes to give a clean chit to Pakistan – this time after the Pahalgam terror attack,” said BJP leader Amit Malviya in a post on X.
"Why is it that every time our forces confront Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, Congress leaders sound more like Islamabad’s defence lawyers than India’s opposition?,” he added.
Union minister Shobha Karandlaje said Pakistan has a long and bloody history of infiltrating terrorists into India, but the Congress continues to downplay such heinous acts time and again.
“There seems to be something deeply flawed in Congress' DNA , always raising doubts on Bharat, always going soft on those who attack our people,” she said.
Hitting out at Chidambaram’s statement, BJP MP Darshan Singh Choudhary said the Congresss leader should think before making such statements.
"The entire world knows where they came from," he said. Why do we need proof when Pakistan is providing the proof to the world".
Interestingly, Chidambaram’s statement came a day before the parliament is scheduled to discuss the Operation Sindoor, the military campaign India had launched against the terrorist hubs in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the wake of the Pahalgam attack.
The Congress and other opposition parties are looking to corner the government on its silence over India’s reported losses in the military confrontation and on US President Donald Trump’s claims that he had brokered a ceasefire between New Delhi and Islamabad.
