Latest news with #Pulwama
Time of India
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Time of India
'Attacks like Pahalgam keep happening': Devotees gather at Kheer Bhawani temple in Kashmir
PTI file photo In the shadow of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that left 26 people dead, including tourists, Kashmir is witnessing a determined show of faith. Devotees—many of them displaced Kashmiri Pandits—are arriving at the Mata Kheer Bhawani temple in Tulmulla, Ganderbal district, ahead of the annual Mela scheduled for June 3. The Pahalgam attack had sparked fear and outrage, with victims being targeted based on religion. The attack, among the deadliest since Pulwama in 2019, led to India launching Operation Sindoor on May 7, which targeted terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Despite these tensions, pilgrims continue to gather at the revered shrine. 'Mata Kheer Bhawani is our Kul Devi. We don't fear anything. This is our land. The arrangements here are excellent. I urge everyone to come and seek blessings," said Rajesh Jyotsi, a devotee, to news agency ANI. Another pilgrim, Rakesh Kaul, said, 'Our connection with Mata Kheer Bhawani is age-old. The situation remains tough, but our faith is tougher. ' Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, who offered his prayers at the temple earlier this week, acknowledged the challenge of conducting the upcoming religious festivals, but expressed confidence that all the necessary arrangements would be made for the smooth pilgrimage. . Abdullah held a meeting with administrative officials in Gulmarg to assess the preparedness. Sharing images of the meeting on social media, the chief minister wrote: "Held a meeting of administrative secretaries/HoDs at Gulmarg today, joined by my cabinet colleagues, advisor, and MLA Gulmarg. Reviewed readiness for Eid-ul-Azha, Mela Kheer Bhawani, Amarnath Yatra & Muharram." Authorities have also assured tight security and facilities for pilgrims. Jammu SSP Joginder Singh said that security and other arrangements were in place to ensure a peaceful and smooth yatra. The Kheer Bhawani shrine holds deep emotional and religious value for Kashmiri Hindus, with devotees offering rice pudding ('kheer') to the goddess. For many, this pilgrimage is a powerful reclaiming of identity and faith.
Scroll.in
2 days ago
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Interview: India's options are limited but military strikes are ‘symbolic', won't deter terror
Military strikes will not deter Pakistan from using terrorism as a tool of foreign policy since Kashmir and the conflict with India are existential to the Pakistani army, said Christine Fair. 'The purpose of this was more illustrative than it was deterrence,' Fair told Scroll in an interview. India's options remain extremely limited, said Fair, an associate professor at Georgetown University who is considered an expert on the Pakistan army and the country's terrorist network. Terror groups, like the Lashkar e Taiba, are domestically crucial to Pakistan while Islamabad's use of nuclear threats in negotiating with the West will ensure its continued survival, said Fair. 'The only thing that really changes Pakistan is a decisive military defeat of the Pakistan army that leaves the Pakistan army in complete disarray,' she said. 'This is not something that India can do right now or for the policy-relevant future. It's not possible at all now [given the nuclear umbrella].' Referring to the military strikes, she said they generated a lot of jingoism in India and were risky but didn't change anything on the ground. 'They're really important symbolic attacks – but they're symbolic attacks. They don't degrade the ability of these organisations to operate.' Fair also pointed out that the off-ramp in this case was manufactured, like it was during the 2019 military strikes in Balakot after the Pulwama terror attack. In both instances, she said, the Indian and the Pakistani publics were left with this 'enormous sense of victory'. The Indian media's 'bakwas', or nonsense, said Fair, also made it difficult to evaluate the implications for foreign policy. Edited excerpts: Play Do you think Pakistan will be deterred by what just happened? No, not at all. The Pakistan army is an insurgent army – it can't defeat India conventionally. And for that matter, India can't defeat Pakistan in a short war because the forces along the IB [international border] and the LOC [Line of Control], are similarly poised. India's advantage can only kick in during a long war and that's increasingly difficult because of nuclear weapons and so forth. So India can't defeat Pakistan, Pakistan can't defeat India. But Pakistan views Kashmir as part of this incomplete process of Partition and that Pakistan itself is not complete without Kashmir. This is a story that all Pakistanis learn. It gives rise to every army chief. There was a lot of hay made about [General Asim] Munir's speech about Kashmir being the jugular vein of Pakistan. The fact is every army chief says this and every prime minister says this. The Pakistan army can't take Kashmir. But what the Pakistan army can do is deny India the victory of saying that Kashmir is calm and a peaceful part of India. I also wanted to dispel any criticism that has been leveraged against the Indian state saying this is an intelligence lapse. I was in Kashmir two years ago [and] the counter insurgency grid is very robust. But the fact is you can't stop every attack. It's just not possible. So, Pakistan has to do this to show that India hasn't compelled or deterred it. What this means is that we're going to see a return to normalcy – just as we did after Pulwama. But mark my words, there's going to be another terrorist attack. It'll likely be in Kashmir. I don't think anything has happened here strategically that is going to deter Pakistan from using terrorism as a tool of foreign policy. But does it increase its cost? In Balakot in 2019 and again this time, we're seeing credible sources that Pakistani air bases have been hit. So does increasing that cost at least impose a further barrier on Pakistan exporting terror to India? The short answer is no and the evidence really shows this, right? Pulwama was pretty costly, but let's look at the lessons that came out of Pulwama. This is important because it involves the duplicity of Indian and Pakistani media. What the Pakistanis, credibly, can say is that they shot down a MiG and they returned its pilot and they were accoladed for doing what a country is supposed to do. What allowed India to back down was this complete fabrication of an F-16 shootdown. There was no F-16 shot down. I say this with 100% confidence. This entire off ramp was manufactured, right? Let's take a look at the off ramp here. It is from the Indian public and from the Pakistani public. The Indian public believes if I listen to [Republic TV anchor] Arnab Goswami, apparently Pakistan took Karachi port. The Indians have these fictive beliefs about these capacious gains that were made vice Pakistan. Pakistan, for its part, believes that it shot down five Indian aircraft. Now, there is evidence that it shot down two, but we don't know about the other three. The Indian and the Pakistani publics are both left with this enormous sense of victory. It's going to take a really long time to do satellite imagery analysis. India made very capacious claims about damage that was made to Balakot. It turned out to be absolute nonsense. But it took a couple of weeks for those claims to be interrogated through satellite imagery analysis. By the time that the actual truth comes out, the media has moved on to something else. In any event, neither the Pakistani or Indian media are interested in what actually happened – because that's just not the way they're operating. Both of the publics have been misinformed, which allows them to have very different beliefs about the costs and the benefits that have been. So what can India do now? India really pulled out all its stops in some way. What do you think that India could do now to credibly deter the Pakistan army from misadventure. The only thing that really changes Pakistan is a decisive military defeat of the Pakistan army that leaves the Pakistan army in complete disarray. That happened in 1971. And yet, within a matter of years, we had Zia ul Haq and we know about the terror story under Zia's tenure. That's the best example we have. But there was a period of relative peace between '71 and '77 or so. So the only way to really deter Pakistan is to decisively defeat and dismember and dismantle the Pakistan army and thoroughly vilify it in the eyes of the Pakistanis. This is not something that India can do right now or for the policy-relevant future. It's not possible at all now [given the nuclear umbrella]. At a strategic level, it's very unfortunate for India. The only way forward, is the path that won't be taken, which is the international community has to resolve that the Pakistani state as it is currently constituted is a menace not only to India but to the international order. What what we've seen instead is that Pakistan gets away with this every single time. It was never on the blacklist FATF [Financial Action Task Force] because that would have deprived it of IMF [International Monetary Fund] funds – and no one wants to deprive Pakistan of IMF funds because it's too dangerous to fail. So absent a consolidated and concerted effort by the international community to reorder the way Pakistan does business, this is going to continue. I have a lot of empathy for the paucity of options that India possesses. As this conflict was going on Pakistan received a $1billion loan from the IMF. Even in a post-Afghanistan situation, we are seeing a Pakistan which does have support from the West and is best friends with China. Practically, will the West ever completely turn away from Pakistan and want to dismember it or completely change the way the state is currently? It's never going to happen. And it's never going to happen because Pakistan uses its nuclear weapons to blackmail the West that we're too dangerous to fail. In the old days we had a parking meter: you put a quarter in it, you got 15 minutes. With Pakistan, you put a quarter in it and you got two minutes – but it was a reliable two minutes. People are afraid that if you change the policy with respect to Pakistan, you'll put that quarter in and you'll get negative 15 minutes. People feel confident that they can manage Pakistan – sort of like mowing the lawn. But in this belief that it has somehow managed Pakistan and managed the conflict that it generates, it actually enables the very same conflict that is so dangerous. What has this conflict meant for Munir. The Pakistan Army's popularity has been declining over the last few years. Does this reverse that decline? It's really fascinating because the Pakistan Army hates me and its enthusiasts have hated me. There have been several occasions over the past year… I was at an airport with a former army officer of all people… So I've had a number of people reach out to me and say, '...I used to hate you because of your views about the Pakistan army, but now I love you because you were right.' This was an actual quote from a former army officer at the Dubai airport. And I was absolutely gobsmacked. So I said, 'It's because of Imran Khan, isn't it? You're an Imran Khan supporter.' And he said, 'Yes'. Imran Khan has put a huge wedge between the Pakistan army and the Pakistan people. And Munir has been suffering tremendously. Imran Khan really was the first prime minister – whether you love him or you hate him – to aim his sights at the Pakistan army, which is why he is in jail. You don't do that and get get away with it. We saw remarkable scenes – people overrunning Pakistani cantonments. The Lahore core commander's house. Just things that you don't see. Domestically, not just Munir, but the Pakistan army is really on its heels. The other issue that doesn't come up, of course, is Balochistan terrorism. In the same way that Indians believe there's a Pakistani hand behind every explosion in Kashmir, the Pakistanis believe there's an Indian hand behind every explosion in Balochistan. There was just a very horrific terrorist attack on a train in Balochistan. In terms of the timing, what explains what's going on with Pahalgam is threefold. There had been normalcy, for the most part, in the Valley. Tourism was returning. Kashmiris were making money off of the increased tourism. You have the declining popularity of Munir specifically, but the army more generally, and then you have this pretty severe spike in terrorism in Balochistan. Those three factors account for why Pahalgam and why now. When there's a war, there's a sense of national unity, especially behind the army. Will this end up badly impacting the PTI [Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf]? This is going to give the army a very temporary respite from the criticism. There's always been discussion about corruption within the army. But for the first time you have the 'core' commanders being called the 'crore' commanders. There's a much more systemic rot in the Pakistan army. The Pakistanis themselves are attuned to. This is going to provide some temporary respite, but it's not going to provide a permanent solution to the gap that has emerged between army supporters and PTI supporters. Can you describe for us how this terror network works? Right now is the Lashkar-e-Taiba as strong as it was 10 years back or has there been a decline in how Pakistan looks at and supports these terror groups? I would say just the opposite. Everyone knows about the LET conducting operations on behalf of the army. But what very few Indians are aware of is the domestic utility of the LET within Pakistan itself. The Lashkar-e-Taiba opposes all of the violence that's taking place within Pakistan, not just obviously the Baloch violence, but also the Islamist violence. They take aim at those that engage in takfir [excommunication]. They take aim at those that are trying to destabilise the government. Lashkar-e-Taiba has this really important domestic function as well as an external function. It is a militant opponent of the Islamic state. The LET is much more important in this post 9/11 world than it was before. You called the Pakistan army an insurgent organisation rather than one that behaves like a conventional army. It's very difficult to defeat an insurgent. Take a look at the Taliban. Look at how many hundreds of thousands of forces, during the height of the surge, and we still couldn't defeat the Taliban. But how does an insurgent organisation prove that it hasn't been defeated? It just has to conduct one attack. It's very easy for the Pakistan army to show that it hasn't been defeated by conducting attacks in Kashmir. More structurally, the Indians are at a huge disadvantage. If the Indians want normalcy – or the semblance of normalcy – which is usually measured by terrorist attacks to return to the valley, they have to have an increasingly impressive counter-insurgency regime, which causes a lot of resentment in the Valley, which furthers the goal of of making Kashmiris feel that they're part of the Indian project. The Pakistanis win this game because it's not a game that's hard for the Pakistanis to win. But on the other hand, it's a very difficult game for the Indians to win. What is the end game for Pakistan and its army here? It keeps exporting terror to Kashmir? Pakistan itself becomes poorer and poorer. Where does this go and end? The Pakistan army only thinks of its own corporate interests. Having an aggressive India that the Pakistan army can credibly say menaces Pakistan, burnishes the Pakistan army's credentials – it allows it to have this huge conventional footing. If there were to be peace with India, the Pakistan army, as it exists today, could not exist. There's no rationale for its existence. For the Pakistan army to have the size that it has, to have its outsized role in politics – it has a hegemon that claims the state's resources – it needs a strong India that looks menacing. I think it might be difficult for Indians to understand that all of this just benefits the Pakistan army. It's almost as if conflict is existential to the Pakistan army. People say if there were peace, there would be a better economy – and this is of course true. But the Pakistan army puts its existential needs above material gains. We've seen that happen in '71 where the Pakistan army was ready to have Pakistan divided rather than lose power. Correct. How popular is support for these terror groups domestically in the public in Pakistan? Your average Pakistani doesn't view these groups as terrorist groups for one thing. They view these groups as fighting a good fight in Kashmir, helping to liberate their Kashmiri brethren from an oppressive Indian state. If people are familiar with the group, they don't view them as terrorists. The other thing that Lashkar e Taiba does [is] it has a bunch of front organisations that do things like health and social service outreach. For example, in Sindh, the state has completely neglected to provide water to the residents. It's also an area that has a lot of Hindu residents. The Lashkar e Taiba provides water services and actually through those service provisions, they've also converted several Hindus to their creed, which is really amazing. Through these health and services outreach, coupled with those who know what they do in Kashmir not being viewed as terrorists, the support is reasonably high. I did a survey of Pakistan. It's very, very out of date – I think it was done in 2013. Obviously, support for the Lashkar-e-Taiba is highest amongst the Punjabis [of Pakistan's province] and it is lowest amongst the Baloch – because Lashkar-e-Taiba is also used as a bulwark against Baloch terrorism and against Baloch nationalism. There are 10 districts in Punjab [province] that account for about 90% of LET recruitment. It's very similar to the Pakistan Army actually. There's an overlap. And the reason for that is they need people with similar skill sets. A lot of what India did in this conflict is to target Punjab, which is such a stark diversion from Indian policy earlier. Do you think that will have an impact on Pakistani army morale? I support the attacks. I'm not criticising India for the attacks. I want to be very very clear. But I also want to be very clear that it was very very risky. And the fact is none of those targets are going to strategically degrade the ability of Jaish-e-Mohammed or Lashkar-e-Taiba to operate. That's a fact. So, it was a lot of risk for not a lot of gain. And by the way, that's why it assured that there would be a strong Pakistani response because when the Indians struck, they didn't go into Pakistani airspace. Within Indian airspace, they used standoff missiles to attack Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. That was pretty provocative, right? We saw the escalation at Balakot pretty quickly. So, obviously the Pakistanis were going to respond robustly to an attack upon the Punjab. But what I wish people would reflect upon – how do I put this nicely? This burnished the credentials of the chappan-inch sinawala [the one with the 56-in chest]. It generated a lot of jingoism in India. It had a lot of risk, but it didn't change anything on the ground. The purpose of this was more illustrative than it was deterrence. I think they were much more political in calculation than they were aimed at degrading the organisations. They're really important symbolic attacks – but they're symbolic attacks. They don't degrade the ability of these organisations to operate. Where does the US-Pakistan relationship stand now post the Afghanistan withdrawal? During the Afghan war, we were really dependent upon Pakistan because of the ground lines of communication. All the war material, most of it flew through Pakistan's airspace or was transported on the ground through Pakistan's ground lines of communication. So we needed them and we were much more willing to put up with their nonsense. But after the withdrawal, the essential concerns about Pakistan's failure remain in place. You still have the constituent of people saying that we should be engaging the Pakistanis, we shouldn't be isolating them. This conflict is going to burnish the credentials of those people who are arguing for engagement. Paul Kapoor has been tapped to be the Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, and it's very unfortunate that he had not been confirmed prior to this crisis. He will be very welcomed in India. He will not be welcomed in Pakistan. It is going to limit our ability to engage Pakistan. We'll just have to see what happens after we have an assistant secretary of state in place. How do you evaluate India's foreign policy performance during this conflict? It's hard to evaluate because the Indian media was just a sea of bakwas [nonsense, rubbish]. And I have to say, after the whole Balakot affair and the manufactured F-16 shootdown, I no longer take Indian announcements as being credible. India lost a lot of credibility for me in the Balakot affair. Because of the media? Because the media was so bad, but also the Indian government directly participated in this fabrication of an F-16 shootdown. So, it's not just the media, it was the Indian government, and specifically the Modi government. I can't just take Indian pronouncements at face value, but what I can see is that the proof is in the pudding. You had a bunch of people engaging on both sides. We encouraged both sides to engage peacefully to resolve their outstanding issues peacefully. But India sees that as a defeat, right? For India that's a defeat. For Pakistan it's a victory. Because it's an acknowledgement that Pakistan's equities are valid. But for India it's a defeat. I can't evaluate the rigorous efforts that were made, but what I can see is that in the outcome of those efforts, India did not secure unequivocal support from international capitals. [Donald] Trump's tweet is something that in India we're looking at with a lot of disfavour. Let's be really clear, right? Trump and JD Vance are not reliable narrators. I actually don't know the extent to which to trust their pronouncements. The Indians have pretty much rubbished a lot of what Trump has said. I don't know the truth because my media is also unable to get to the bottom of things. But today's tweet is a really good example of what I would say is a failure of Indian foreign policy. Because if India had successfully persuaded the United States of its position, we would not have seen such an obtuse statement coming from the President of the United States.
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
BJP leans in as cracks within Congress on Operation Sindoor show
AS THE Congress's internal contradictions over Operation Sindoor and the events after it play out in public, the BJP is framing its response at multiple levels. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi is leading from the front in driving home a message of the success of the operation against Pakistan, BJP spokespersons and leaders are using statements by the Congress to question the party on its 'nationalism'. The third line of BJP response is playing up the intra-Congress differences, particularly over all-party delegations that are part of the government's global outreach on terrorism, of which some Congress leaders too are a crucial part. 'It seemed in the early stages that the Congress was being careful this time, unlike in 2019 (after the Pulwama terror attack). But its leadership has slipped, leaving it open to political attacks. In these moments of national crisis, the Opposition should stand with the national mood, and wait for a better time and issue to attack the government – something the Congress again failed to do,' a BJP leader said on the condition of anonymity. In his speeches since the ceasefire, PM Modi has largely confined himself to how Pakistan had been defeated. His only mention of the Congress was at a speech in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, on May 27, when he claimed that had Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel not been thwarted in 1947-48 when there was an invasion into Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir would have been with India. In the same speech, Modi said in a swipe at the Opposition that every bit of the operation was captured on camera this time, 'taaki hamare ghar mein koi saboot na maange (so that no one at home demands proof)'. In other speeches, Modi has used expressions such as 'hot sindoor running through my veins' and warned Pakistan that his 'bullet was ready' in case of any mischief. The reference to 1947-48 marks a gradual increase of stridency since May 12, when in his first address to the nation following the ceasefire, Modi struck a conciliatory note, saying, 'After this terrorist attack, the entire nation, every citizen, every community, every class, every political party, unitedly stood up for strong action against terrorism.' The targeting of the Opposition has largely been left to other BJP leaders, who have pulled no punches against the Congress since it raised questions over the ceasefire, given US President Donald Trump's claims regarding it. The war of words has only intensified since Rahul Gandhi, who had till then largely kept quiet on Operation Sindoor, decided to go after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, claiming that his statement suggested India had informed Pakistan 'before' it struck its terror bases. Gandhi wanted to know how many Indian aircraft were 'lost' because Pakistan was expecting an attack. Congress spokespersons took their cues from this, repeating the claims, with Jaishankar even being dubbed a 'mukhbir (informer)'. The MEA said Jaishankar's remarks were being 'misinterpreted' by the Congress. The BJP asked whether the Congress was 'with the government' on terrorism, as it said it was, or helping Pakistan by talking of planes being downed. 'When it is clear that Operation Sindoor is still on, no specific iteration of the word 'ceasefire' has been used… during the course of the operation, if you raise questions, this creates a doubt on your intentions,' BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said. Sambit Patra accused Gandhi of 'giving oxygen' to Pakistan, and claimed that Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder, had once praised the Congress leader. 'Now we all know why.' The best opening to the BJP has been provided by the Congress's Shashi Tharoor problem. Having made it known that the government picked the names of the delegations against its consent, the Congress has been barely able to conceal its exasperation over Tharoor's articulate exposition of the Modi government's anti-terror stand. Its own spokespersons have gone so far as to suggest that Tharoor, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, is fit to be the BJP's 'super spokesperson'. Turning the knife in, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju said: 'What does the Congress party want & how much do they really care for the country? Should the Indian MPs go to foreign nations and speak against India and its Prime Minister? There's a limit to political desperation!'
India Today
3 days ago
- Politics
- India Today
India struck inside Pak's home thrice: PM says Op Sindoor not yet over
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday issued a stern warning to Pakistan, declaring that India had already struck 'three times inside its home' and that Operation Sindoor, launched in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, was far from at his first rally in West Bengal since the start of the military offensive earlier this month, PM Modi said India would continue to extract a 'heavy price' from those who sponsor this land of Bengal, I, on behalf of 140 crore Indians, declare that Operation Sindoor is not over yet," he said to loud cheers. The Prime Minister invoked the emotional significance of sindoor in Bengali culture, tying it to the nation's fight against terrorism. 'Now that I am standing on the sacred land of Sindoor Khela, it is only right that we speak about a new resolve against terrorism — Operation Sindoor,' he to the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 people, Modi said, 'The terrorists dared to wipe off sindoor from the foreheads of our sisters. But our brave soldiers made them realise the power of that sindoor.'Reiterating his government's zero-tolerance policy on terrorism, the PM said, 'India has told the world that if there is a terrorist attack on India, the enemy will have to pay a heavy price. Pakistan should understand that we have entered your house and killed you three times.'advertisementThough PM Modi did not spell out the details, his comments referred to the 2016 surgical strikes after the Uri attack, the 2019 Balakot air strikes in response to Pulwama, and the recent precision strikes carried out under Operation Sindoor."We destroyed cross-border terror infrastructure, which Pakistan had never thought of. We have hit Pakistan thrice inside their homes," he Islamabad of institutionalising terrorism, the Prime Minister said, 'Terrorism and mass murder are the biggest expertise of the Pakistani army, because whenever there is an open war, they face defeat.'He also recalled Pakistan's actions in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. 'No one can forget the way the Pakistan Army committed rapes and murders in East Pakistan and the terror it had unleashed there.''Pakistan, the country that nurtures terrorism, has nothing positive to offer to the world... But India has changed. We no longer tolerate such cowardly acts. And Operation Sindoor is our firm answer,' he Watch
India Gazette
3 days ago
- Politics
- India Gazette
RJD MP Manoj Jha urges Centre to prioritise tourist safety in J-K
New Delhi [India], May 29 (ANI): After Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah highlighted the need for coordination between the Centre, the J-K government, and LG for security operations, RJD MP Manoj Jha on Thursday stated that the security of the tourists should remain the topmost priority for all stakeholders, underlining that the Centre should conduct an open dialogue to address the issues of the territory. Speaking to ANI, Jha said, 'If you see, J-K is not a state yet. The Centre should talk about all issues (regarding J-K) openly, and it should not become a Centre vs state thing, but the safety of the tourists should be the topmost priority.' This comes after Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah highlighted the need for coordination between three power centres--the elected government, the Union Government, and the Lieutenant Governor's office--to ensure security and law and order in the region after the Pahalgam terror attack. Earlier on Wednesday, J-K CM Abdullah pointed out that the security of tourists currently resides within the powers of the Lieutenant Governor. Addressing a press conference, Chief Minister Abdullah said, 'The fact is that security and law and order are not the responsibility of the elected government. Whose responsibility is it? The Lieutenant are three sets of power centres that need to coordinate to ensure that things go smoothly here... I can promote tourism; I can create infrastructure for tourism... However, the security of the tourists currently resides within the powers of the Lieutenant Governor. That is the point I made that the Union Government, elected government, and Raj Bhavan need to work together to ensure that what happened on 22nd April doesn't happen again...' On April 22, in a dastardly attack, terrorists killed 26 people, including one Nepali citizen, in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam. The attack was one of the deadliest in the Valley since the 2019 Pulwama strike, in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans were killed. CM Abdullah exhorted that his government is making efforts to restore normalcy in the region, for which the government itself has been conducting meetings here. To restore normalcy in the region, Abdullah has directed the Education Minister to resume picnics in schools and colleges and encourage visits to popular tourist destinations like Gulmarg and Pahalgam. He also chaired meetings to discuss the situation and plan for the future. He asserted, 'Everything was stopped after April 22. Before people from all over the country come here, we should come first here. Hence, a cabinet meeting was called in Pahalgam yesterday and today a meeting of administrative secretaries and senior department heads was held...I have directed the Education Minister to ensure that picnics are resumed in schools and colleges and visits to Gulmarg and Pahalgam are made to move towards normalcy...' (ANI)
