Country’s mood is to avenge Pulwama martyrs: Rajnath

Bhubaneswar: In his first public meeting since 40 CRPF personnel were martyred in the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district, home minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday promised that the sacrifice of the jawans won’t go in vain and said the country’s general mood is to avenge those responsible for the dastardly attack.
Addressing a BJP rally in Bhadrak, 140 km from here, Rajnath said, “I understand everybody has this yearning about how best to avenge the terror attack.”

He added, “As the home minister, I assure you the martyrs’ sacrifice will not go in vain. Our defence forces have been given a free hand to ensure the sacrifice doesn’t go waste.”

Two of Odisha’s sons — Manoj Behera and Prasanna Sahoo — were among the CRPF men who lost their lives in the henious attack. Amid anti-Pakistan and anti-terror slogans from the crowd at the Ranital ground, Rajnath, while paying reverence to the two martyrs from the state, said, “I take pride in the fact that the entire country stand united on the issue. All political parties have condemned Pakistan.”

Before the start of the rally Rajanath and petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan paid tributes to the slain CRPF jawans and observed two minutes’ silence as a mark of respect.

Stating that the armed forces had neutralised numerous terror attacks in the bud in the past five years, the home minister said, “Pakistan, which has been patronising terrorism, realised that frustration and desperation had grown among the militants due to successful operations against them by our security forces in the last five years,” adding that the Pulwama attack could be a fallout of that.

Rajnath also launched a veiled attack on Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, saying, “The people of Odisha would like to know why the state is among the most backward even though the same government has been in power for so long.”

Asking people to vote for the BJP in the forthcoming Lok Sabha and assembly elections, Rajnath said, “BJP governments at the state and at the Centre will put Odisha on the fast track of development.” He also Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to come back to power in the General Elections.

Earlier, the two central ministers paid tributes to the martyrs of India’s freedom struggle at Eram in Bhadrak district. Eram is known as the second Jallianwala Bagh where police had shot dead 29 freedom fighters during a meeting on September 28, 1942.

EoM