DH NEWS SERVICE
new delhi, Oct 8
Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Congress-led UPA government on Wednesday for failing to punish Pakistan after the 26/11 attacks in 2008 due to “foreign pressure”.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) at Ulwe in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, Modi said, “The Congress should tell people why it stopped the army from attacking Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. A senior Congress leader, who was the then Union home minister, recently said in an interview that after 26/11, our armed forces were ready to strike, and the country wanted that. If he is to be believed, the attack didn’t happen because of pressure from one country. The Congress government stopped the armed forces from striking Pakistan.”
“The Congress must explain who succumbed under pressure from a foreign country and played with the nation’s sentiments. Such a failure to act strengthened terrorism,” PM Modi added.
The prime minister further said, “Mumbai is not only the economic capital city but also one of the most vibrant cities in India. This is the reason terrorists attacked Mumbai in 2008. But the then Congress government gave a message of weakness.”
PM Modi’s statement came a few days after then Union home minister P Chidambaram stated about the 26/11 attack in a podcast, “The whole world descended on Delhi to tell us, ‘Don’t start a war (against Pakistan)’. Two or three days after I took over, the then United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to meet me and then prime minister (Dr Manmohan Singh) to say, ‘Please don’t react’. I said this is a decision the government will take. An act of retribution did cross my mind. The prime minister discussed this (retaliatory military action) even as the attack was going on, but the conclusion — largely influenced by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian Foreign Service — was that we should not physically react.” Referring to the podcast interview of former Chidambaram, PM Modi said, “Recently, a senior Congress leader and former home minister has revealed that after the Mumbai attacks, our security forces were ready to attack Pakistan, but due to pressure from another country, the Congress government at the time stopped our security forces.”
“The Congress must name the country whose pressure forced them to take such a decision. Because of that decision, India had to suffer a lot. The weakness of the Congress strengthened the terrorists. The country repeatedly paid for this mistake by sacrificing lives. For us, nothing is more important than national security and the safety of our citizens,” PM Modi said.
“Today’s India strikes its enemies inside their own homes. The whole world witnessed India’s strength during Operation Sindoor,” he said, citing ‘Operation Sindoor’, launched to retaliate the terror attack in the Pahalgam district of Jammu & Kashmir which claimed the lives of 26 civilians.
