New Delhi: Expressing his dismay over the near blackout by the Indian media of the startling allegations made by former governor of Jammu and Kashmir Satya Pal Malik, the Thiruvananthapuram MP and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that “the media should press the government of India for an honest admission of failure and corrective action”. He said that there was no “national security interests in suppressing the story” and that such a blackout only serves the interests of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
In a recent interview to The Wire, Malik alleged that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval asked him to remain silent when as the J&K governor he pointed out significant failures on the part of the government agencies to prevent the deadly Pulwama terrorist attack in which 40 soldiers of the Central Reserve Police Force were killed in 2019.
This thread summarises the startling revelations in ex-J&K Governor Satyapal Malik’s interview with Karan Thapar in @thewire_in which has been shamefully under-reported by our media:
1. CRPF asked for aircraft to fly their personnel; this was refused by the Home Ministry.— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) April 16, 2023
Responding to the “under-reporting” of such serious allegations in the media, Tharoor on Sunday summarised point-wise what he called Malik’s “revelations”.
“1. CRPF asked for aircraft to fly their personnel; this was refused by the Home Ministry.
2. The chosen route was not sanitised. 8-10 link roads that could be used by a potential terrorist to attack the convoy were not manned by security personnel.
3. A car w/300kg of RDX from Pakistan entered J&K & roamed around unimpeded for ten days.
Incompetence or carelessness?
4. Gov Malik told PM & NSA of the intelligence and security failures and was instructed not to speak about them publicly.
5. On Article 370 abrogation, the Governor was informed at the last minute even though constitutionally he had to grant the consent of GoJ&K for the change. Gov Malik felt the downgrading of J&K from a state to a Union Territory was an unnecessary humiliation which hurt Kashmiri pride.”
He said that all such allegations were “matters of national security which ought to be of concern to the nation” and asked “how could any serious media ignore such major news”.
Tharoor said that Malik’s claims that the prime minister is ignorant about Kashmir and that he isn’t bothered about corruption may be the former governor’s opinion. But he added that when he blamed government authorities for the “national tragedy” while still in the gubernatorial office, the failure to report it shows the media’s “wilful abdication of duty” and “evidence of de facto censorship, unsupported by law”.
“We should stop claiming we are a democracy with a free press if Govt can muzzle media in this way,” he tweeted.
“The 40 jawans won’t come back to us but they & our nation deserve the truth,” he said.