Congress MP Digvijaya Singh also alleges China links to attack; Army combs forests for terrorists
Security personnel on Friday lay a wreath near the mortal remains of soldiers who were killed in a terrorist attack in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, on Thursday. Pic/PTI
Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh on Friday said contrary to the Centre’s claim, terrorism cases are on the rise in Jammu and Kashmir, while referring to the Thursday attack on an Army vehicle that led to the death of five soldiers.
ADVERTISEMENT
Talking to reporters, Singh said the Centre had claimed that scrapping Article 370 in J&K in 2019 and demonetisation (2016) will help in fighting terrorism in the erstwhile state, but figures of Defence and Home Ministries suggest terror-related incidents have actually gone up since.
“A big attack took place in terrorism-free Poonch in Jammu. Such incidents used to take place in Anantnag and Pulwana (in Kashmir Valley). Now, terror attacks have started taking place in new areas,” the Rajya Sabha MP said. “Cartridges recovered (in Poonch) have markings of China. This is a new thing that has come to light that such terror activities in India are seeing Chinese links,” he said.
Also Read: NIA team to visit Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch terror attack site
National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah said the top security officials in J&K should look into the lapses that led to the attack. “The area (where the attack took place) is closer to the border. There must be a security issue which they need to check. There has been a mistake somewhere, they should look into it,” the Lok Sabha member from Srinagar told reporters.
Meanwhile, the Army conducted a massive manhunt for the terrorists in the dense forests of Bata-Doriya in Poonch with the help of drones, sniffer dogs and a MI chopper.
An NIA team visited the ambush spot and conducted full inspection of the area and the vehicle targeted in the attack.
Five
No. of soldiers killed in the attack on Thursday
This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
