As Soldiers’ Bodies Arrive, PM, Rahul, Kejriwal ,Sitharaman Pay Tribute At Delhi Airport
PULWAMA/ NEW DELHI : : Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, along with Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal paid tributes to the 40 CRPF soldiers at the Palam airport in Delhi this evening, as their bodies arrived from Pulwama in south Kashmir.
The PM and other leaders laid the wreath on the coffins, wrapped in the national flag.The bodies of the soldiers – killed in an attack by Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed – were brought to Delhi in a aircraft today. The bodies will be sent to their respective cities tomorrow.
Apart from the leaders, also present at the airport were the three Service chiefs – Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba and Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa.
Shock, grief and outrage have engulfed the country after the deadly attack on Thursday in which a terrorist rammed buses in a security convoy on the Jammu-Srinagar highway with a car carrying 60 kg of explosives.
PM Modi today warned that those responsible for the attack had made a “big mistake” and would pay a “very heavy price”. In hard-hitting comments at an official event, PM Modi said security forces had been given a free hand to act against terror.
At a meeting this morning of the Cabinet Committee on Security at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home, the government also scrapped ‘Most Favoured Nation’ status for Pakistan, which was never reciprocated.
This is the worst terror attack to take place in Kashmir since the start of the century. On October 1, 2001, three terrorists had rammed a Tata Sumo loaded with explosives into the main gate of the Jammu and Kashmir State Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar, killing 38 people. In 2016, the army had carried out a cross-border surgical strike and destroyed several terror launch pads after 19 soldiers were killed in an attack on an army brigade headquarters in Uri.
Meanwhile, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Jammu and Kashmir top police officer Dilbagh Singh today carried the coffin of a CRPF soldier who was killed in the car bombing in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama yesterday. The Home Minister, who has assured the country that the government will “undertake whatever it takes to avenge this”, carried the coffin wrapped in the national flag on his shoulder, as the Director General of Police lifted another side of the coffin and walked together, helped by other officials. “The nation will not forget the supreme sacrifice of our brave CRPF jawans.
After taking the coffin near a truck that will take the bodies to Srinagar airport, where a special aircraft will fly them out, Rajnath Singh stood in silence beside other officials including Governor Satya Pal Malik . “We will not forget, we will not forgive. We salute our martyrs of Pulwama attack and stand with the families of our martyr brothers…” tweeted the central force that works under the aegis of Rajnath Singh’s ministry.The families of the soldiers who died in the attack have asked the Modi government to avenge the deaths. “I want to tell the terrorists and their backers… they have made a big mistake. You will have to pay a very heavy price… I assure everyone that the forces behind the attack… We will bring them to justice,” PM Modi said in Delhi today
The father of a CRPF soldier from Bihar who died yesterday has said he is ready to sacrifice his other son as well for the country. Ratan Thakur was among the 40 CRPF soldiers killed in the car bombing. His grieving father in Bihar’s Bhagalpur said he is going to send his other son to fight for the country even after losing one son “in Mother India’s service”.(With Agency Inputs ).
